Dubai: In its ongoing efforts at making customer relationship professional and world class in all its hospitals and primary health centres, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) has introduced an innovative new system for customer feedback called the Customer Service Index (CSI).

Elaborating on the system which is being introduced as a pilot project at Latifa Hospital and five other primary health centres around the city, Shaikha Al Rahoumi, director of customer relations department of DHA, told Gulf News: “This is a unique queue system that is based on tokens where the customer’s satisfaction at the service delivered at the hospital can be directly entered and can be seen live on a screen, much like the stock market index. The index has two bars — red signifying dissatisfaction and green signifying satisfaction. Before exiting the hospital, the customer can press either to indicate his level of happiness with the service and this is going to be seen.”

Shaikha was speaking on occasion of DHA’s felicitation ceremony to appreciate the suggestions given by both internal staff and external customers. “In 2014, we received 538 suggestions internally and externally, of which 16 such as the Smart clinic, extending some of the primary health centres for 24 hours to be able accommodate emergency health care and so on, have been implemented. We have got a huge response from our own staff and from our customers. We intend to focus on customer care and include the entire staff — doctors, nurses, paramedics and other ancillary staff — in the purview of excellent customer care culture with appropriate training for all,” she added.

At the ceremony, Eisa Al Maidour, director-general of DHA, felicitated 52 people for coming up with excellent suggestions – 11 were external customers and 13 were DHA staff members. “We announced the Dubai Health Strategy in 2013 and customer care is at the heart of our strategy. For the health sector, excellence in health-care management, delivery and customer care must go hand-in-hand. This ceremony reiterates the importance of customer satisfaction,” he said.