egan with the professor feeling distressed from an “illness” and decided to call his primary care physician, Dr. Martin. He spoke with Betty, a nurse who told him the doctor was booked all day. For this reason, he sought a referral to the HealthCheck clinic which was covered under the university insurance. Despite the professor’s sickness, he was not referred to the clinic. Afterwards, the professor called the Employee Benefits Office and his case was relayed to Candy, the director, who shared the professor’s frustration. He took the medicine prescribed by Betty, with minimal results, so again he called Dr. Martin’s office and found he was out of office.
Unsatisfied, the professor went to HealthCheck, where he was seen attended, diagnosed, prescribed medicine, and immediately felt better. For a last time he called Betty and told her of HealthCheck’s great service. Betty told him the doctor would not refer the professor there feeling the clinic did not have the best care. The professor then passed the information to the employee Benefits Office, with staff who shared the professor’s skepticism.
Discussion Questions
1. Who is the customer in this case?
In the given case there are internal and external customers. We have three service providers who are interdependent components of the health care system, first the health care office which behave as an insurance for their staff/professor, the health providers, (hospitals, Healthcheck, Dr. Martin’s office) and at last the pharmacy. However, each entity is providing different services and by using the SIPOC diagram for each individual service, thus we can further identify customers on the receiving end of that particular service. In the case of the hospital therefore, the pharmacy and the insurance become the secondary (internal) customer and ultimately patient is the end customers (External) for all three