Prentiss County Customer Service Satisfaction Project

Summary

Impact Statement: 
The Prentiss County Health Department and Mississippi State Department of Health partnered on a project to reduce wait time in their WIC clinics, reassign staff as needed on higher traffic days, and provide customer service training to frontline staff to assure greater satisfaction and participation among WIC clients.
Summary: 

The purpose of the study was to examine factors related to client satisfaction in the Prentiss County, Mississippi, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program clinic and to identify potential barriers to participation through a 6-month project initiated by the Mississippi State Department of Health and the Community of Practice for Public Health Improvement (COPPHI). The study examined clinic wait times, clinic environment, staff attitudes toward clients, quality of care, client satisfaction, and client service practices in the WIC clinic from the perspective of WIC participants.

The goals of the project were to identify strengths and best practices, to identify areas of weakness for improvement, and to establish a baseline and track goals over time.

The Prentiss County WIC clinic was selected for the study because the district administration was willing to participate in a process improvement project. As part of the pre-intervention, a baseline needs assessment in the form of a client satisfaction survey was conducted during spring 2013. All clients presenting to the WIC clinic during the pre-intervention survey period were included; 95% of those approached agreed to participate. The pre-intervention survey revealed longer lobby wait times, bad attitudes, and disrespectful employees as causes leading to poor client satisfaction.

The quality improvement (QI) team used performance improvement techniques such as setting goals in specific terms, establishing measurable outcomes, developing general ideas, and applying a Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle to test and implement changes. The QI team provided training to WIC clerical staff on the use of the new electronic SPIRIT system to reduce wait times, developed courtesy phrases for WIC clerical staff to use when clients visit the WIC clinic, and re-assigned some of the staff responsibilities.

A post-intervention client satisfaction survey was conducted, which revealed marked improvement in the percentage of clients who were satisfied during their visit to the clinic.

Organization that conducted the QI initiative: 
Mississippi State Department of Health
Citation: 

Gainey, A. Public Health Quality Improvement Exchange. Prentiss County Customer Service Satisfaction Project. Thu, 03/09/2017 - 13:36. Available at http://www.phqix.org/content/prentiss-county-customer-service-satisfaction-project. Accessed March 28, 2024.

Submission Status: 
Completed
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Comments

Submitted by tkane on

Wow, what a breakthrough with 100% reporting satisfied or very satisfied! Which "solution" do you think had the greatest impact on overall customer satisfaction? I'm guessing "professional enrighment" with the courtesy phrases, but I'd love to be proven wrong! :) 

Thank you for sharing this project on PHQIX. 

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