"A complaining patient or his/ her attendant is actually a good friend of your hospital" a quote of one of the best practitioner and hospital entrepreneur of the North-East. If you analyze the above quote, it's very true because the patient through his valuable feedback gives you an opportunity to provide or improve your services.

If we observe we shall find that most of the patients or attendants of Northeast are pleased with whatever healthcare services we offer but yet there arises a few instances where patient or attendants feel we have not served them up to their expectations and hence the cause of an ugly repercussion.

These patients or their attendants can continue to harbour ill - feeling even after they have left the hospital. Survey show that a satisfied patient will tell three others about their experience but a dissatisfied patient will relate to twenty.

It is normally seen that we try to avoid such difficult or complaining patients or attendants but if we resist that urge and give attention to them we can see tangible results. Dealing with difficult patients is often as much of a challenge as making a difficult diagnosis or performing a delicate surgery.

However, if you can offer satisfactory solutions to their problem/s they become more or less loyal to you or to your organization for a lifetime. If we can successfully resolve their problem they will publicize their respect for you, your staff and to your hospital.

There are few ways by which we can deal with the difficult patient or attendant:-

a) When you talk with a difficult patient, do not try to downplay the seriousness of the complaints. Always allow the patient/ attendants to express his/ her problems or complaints. Even if you know that the patient or attendant is wrong, once they started talking, it's better not to disturb or interrupt and give them a patient hearing.

b) Apologize sincerely, the patient or attendant may be right or wrong, always remember that "The CUSTOMER is always RIGHT or the CUSTOMER is the KING". A sincere apology is invariably needed before any further action is taken.

c) Make an empathetic statement e.g. "we are sorry that you had such problem". The patient or attendant should feel that you are empathetic towards their problem. Few words like "I know you must be very upset/ disappointed with the attitude/ behavior of our staffs". This type of response would definitely make the patient or attendant feel that you understand the problem and are sympathetic which allows them to become less aggressive. Often this kind of response is all that the patient or attendant is seeking.

d) Establish rapport with the patient and attendant. The effort should be taken to establish the rapport with the patient and especially with the attendants at all the Point of Contact (POC) for example Front Office Staffs, Security staffs, sisters etc. From the top management to the lower level staff should sincerely show that the patient's goodwill is the most important and they will make every effort to solve their problem.

e) Do not be defensive. Let the patient or their attendants know that you are not in an offensive stance. We should remember that we are working with, not against the patients. We should always ask additional questions to get more information's from the patient or patient party, this will also help in the other way that the patient or attendants that you are interested in finding a solution. A win-win environment should exist.

f) Take Control of the situation. After you have heard about the problem/ complaint and your sincere apologies been offered it's now time to collect all the facts and move towards a solution based on the facts and information. Keeping the patient or the attendant who lodged the complaint informed is also very important.

g) Explain the course of action. Once you have decided a course of action/ corrective action to be taken let the patient or the attendant know about that, this will lower down their hostility towards the management or the hospital authority. Also, it'll bring clarity between the two parties. It's always encouraged to give crystal clear information while handling a crisis especially in the healthcare sector.

h) Ensure that the course of action, corrective/preventive has been carried out and the results are acceptable to patient and their attendants. This will indicate to the patient and attendants that you and your staffs are highly concerned about the complaint/ problems faced by them and are trying to find out a solution to the problem. Communicate with them the action undertaken and timely follow-up is vital at this point.

i) When dealing with patient problems deal with undivided attention. Dealing effectively with a difficult patient requires your complete attention, one cannot be effective problem solver until and unless you pay full attention to the problem because there are chances that you may fail to notice few important points due to the partial attention.

j) Finally, Be Proactive - preventive action is always better than corrective action. The best way to prevent the unwanted situation is to take the precautionary measurement. There have been instances of delivering a wrong dead body to the family members resulting to a huge hue & cry. So this type of incidents can be avoided by making facial identification a must while handing over a dead body to the family members.

In today's competitive healthcare market, it is important to make every effort to encourage constructive criticism from patients or attendants. If we can respond in a positive way to the dissatisfied patient we will convert them to a satisfied customers.

We can reduce these situations to a huge percentage if we can elevate the "Patient's Satisfaction" to" Patient's Delight".