Striving for Excellence in Health care, Promoting Wellness – Guest Editorial submitted by Tammy Torrey
At Jefferson Community Health Center, we have a strong mission of providing excellence in health care and promoting lifelong wellness in the communities we serve. We wish to be the first choice for health care. Being a state leader in customer service sets us apart from other health care organizations as we constantly strive to be the very best we can be.

As employees of Jefferson Community Health Center, we have a wonderful opportunity to practice excellence in customer service. We take pride in meeting and surpassing the expectations of patients, families, physicians, volunteers and each other all the time. This means that we support and treat each other with a high level of respect, dignity and service. 

With this in mind, we have developed customer service standards to guide our staff in achieving and maintaining service excellence. We are a state leader and we take great pride in the wonderful care and service at Jefferson Community Health Center. 

Our Customer Service Standards of Excellence committee, consisting of employees from several different departments, began meeting in June of this year. We reviewed service standards from several different hospitals and decided which of these were most important at JCHC. The committee chose seven customer service standards of excellence which are Attitude, Appearance, Commitment to Co-workers, Communication, Patient Confidentiality, Privacy and Modesty and Safety.

All employees were asked to provide their comments and input regarding the standards at two different stages of development. The result was our Customer Service Standards of Excellence handbook which includes JCHC’s vision and mission statement, core values, an introductory letter for new employees and a full explanation of the seven standards. Also, a “Letter of Intent” was developed and being signed by each employee, including our CEO and Board of Directors, to commit to being a team player and to daily provide the highest quality of service with utmost care, compassion, integrity, respect and excellence.

November 14-18 was “Roll Out Week” at JCHC for our Customer Service Standards of Excellence. As each employee signs the “Letter of Intent”, to abide by and uphold these standards, we will ensure that all of us at JCHC are moving in the same direction in our dedication to providing excellence in health care in the communities we serve.

JCHC Customer Service Standards of Excellence committee members are Jill Almaguer, Nichole Siebolt, Alicia Friesen, Sharon Ebke, Kristen Kujath, Donna Winslow, Diane Wellsandt and Tammy Torrey.

If you have any questions or would like your hospital's quality initiatives to be featured on the NHA Web site, contact Monica Seeland, Vice President, Quality Initiatives, (402) 458-4914 or mseeland@nhanet.org.