Customer service in health care: Does AIDET really work?

Mnemonics can be incredibly cool. When I was in medical school, there was just too much stuff to remember and memory aids were so very helpful. Most specifically I refer to the vile and inappropriate one that helped me remember the cranial nerves which I remember to this day and will not share in print. In ancient times orators used memory palaces to memorize long speeches or poems, associating words with familiar and sometimes bizarre images. All this is to say that I have nothing against a good mnemonic. Lately though, as I have struggled to memorize a new acronym which is supposed to be good for me, I’ve been thinking about what makes a mnemonic good and what makes one annoyingly terrible. The most irritating mnemonic in recent experience is probably the “Hs and Ts” from advanced cardiac life support (ACLS). When a person’s heart has ceased to be able to sustain life or blood pressure, we use a memorized sequence of interventions to resuscitate them, the ACLS protocol. Ideally, we would all be fast enough and coolly competent and use our diagnostic skills and knowledge of treatment to rapidly and effectively help the patient recover in short order. The fact is that, for most of us, a cardiac arrest occurs rather infrequently and is associated with enough anxiety that, without a good solid script, shared with a treating team, we might just stand around and flap our hands and mumble. With the script, we sometimes are able to restore a functional cardi...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Physician Hospital Source Type: blogs