NEWH - Winter 2020 - 14

GUEST PERSPECTIVE

Healthcare Hospitality Management as a Career
By reinforcing the principles of service excellence and employing some of the tools and suggestions described below,
every hospitality/hotel and healthcare manager can significantly strengthen patient/guest loyalty.
KEY AREAS OF NEEDED FOCUS ARE AS FOLLOWS:

» Why patient or guest loyalty is very important
» Why satisfied patients/guests do not equate to loyalty
» Why each manager and employee has a role to play in the service setting
» How attitude, courtesy, and compassion are the bedrock for success
The term healthcare comprises hospitals, medical campuses (many with dedicated hotels), clinics, retirement communities,
nursing homes, and life care and continuing care facilities. Approaching almost $4 trillion annual expenditure, healthcare is
a part of the U.S. economy that shows no signs of slowing down. Given the aging population, the need for all services in the
healthcare category will steadily increase. Furthermore, despite the abundance of data available, patients and loved ones
have a difficult time assessing the "technical" factors of healthcare quality. Service markers usually substitute as criteria
for judging a hospital or provider. Consequently, with the newfound importance of service criteria, there will be many
career openings for hotel and restaurant management graduates.
Graduates from hospitality, business, and healthcare management programs who join this segment of the healthcare/
hospitality industry can look forward to solid growth for the future, stable work hours, good pay and benefits, oftentimes
daycare for employee children, career growth, and the satisfaction of making a real difference by serving people in need.
Usually a graduate of a four-year hospitality program begins as an assistant director, works up to a director of food
services, and eventually can become a general manager or vice president for patient/guest services. The U.S. labor force
as a whole is expected to have slow if not anemic job growth as workers age. Indeed, much of the job growth in the coming
decades will focus on services for seniors. Healthcare occupations and related health industries are expected to have the
fastest employment growth and add the most jobs through 2024 according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
As more healthcare facilities grow to become medical campuses and medical meccas for care, they emulate hotels in their
quality and delivery of health and wellness (H2H) services. Many build hotels or have partner hotels for medical guests
and tourists on their health campuses. In fact, in medical centers and hospitals, after the procedure (surgery or other
treatment), approximately 75 percent of the services provided to patients are hospitality/hotel related (H2H), including
dining, environmental, transportation, front desk, educational, and entertainment services.
And, for example, medical centers may add wellness classes, culinary education, and spa operations, which hospitality
school graduates should be prepared to oversee. In addition, more food service directors are becoming GMs of the entire
healthcare campus enterprise. This is usually a vice president position and can provide challenge, excitement, personal
fulfillment of caring, and very good pay and benefits in the six-figure salary range. In sum, hospitality schools prepare
graduates to be GMs of hotels, and now graduates should think of becoming GMs/VPs of the healthcare (nonmedical)
operations and H2H patient/guest services in the future. ❙❘❚

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