When a Little Means a Lot, St. Jude Is Paying Attention

A glass of water. A deck of cards. A coloring book.

Little things like these matter to patients stuck in the hospital.

That’s the motivation, at least, for St. Jude Medical Center’s new “At Your Service” program. The hospital last year added a “concierge” desk in its east lobby off Valencia Mesa Drive in Fullerton. It’s staffed round-the-clock, seven days a week, with customer-service people who respond to patients’ calls for nonmedical items.

Staffers are to make sure patients and their families get whatever they need, says Chris Thompson, the program’s manager. They dispatch mundane items to patients’ rooms, such as a hair dryer, deodorant, stationery or coloring books for kids.

They answer families’ requests for referrals to local restaurants, hotels, religious institutions, golf courses and the like. They’ve booked plane tickets for family members. Recently, a disabled visitor who frequently came to see his gravely ill mother was met with a wheelchair, escorted to her room, and served meals.

Thompson says the hospital launched the program after patients complained of having to wait to receive nonessential items such as an extra pillow or glass of milk. Patient requests to the nursing station for nonmedical items would get put aside when medical emergencies demanded nurses’ attention, he said. “Medications and treatments were showing up on time, but sometimes patients had to ask two or three times for nonmedical things,” he says.

Changes in health care, such as shorter stays for most patients, have made it harder for hospitals to get to understand the mundane needs of their customers, he says. “You don’t have a chance to build a rapport,” he says.

Under the new program, nurses encourage patients to call the front desk for nonmedical needs, he says. A guidebook to hospital amenities is placed in every patient’s room. And desk staff wear cellular phones.

Thompson says the program makes him feel like a hotel boss. “The only difference is our guests are not here under their own free will.”

*

Barbara Marsh covers health care for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7762 and at barbara.marsh@latimes.com