By Anthony Cirillo

I'm insulted and you should be too.

I knew when I read this FierceHealthcare blurb that there was a blog lurking. But right after I read it I had to leave my desk for a doctor's appointment. Well that appointment sealed the deal.

When you arrive at your 2 p.m. appointment and are not seen until 3 p.m. that is an insult.

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When you fly a certain airline and their idea of offering a better experience is to charge you thirty bucks to "upgrade" to, get this, "Economy Plus" that is an insult. (Sorry, I do a lot of flying in my consulting!)

And then this: The featured hospital in the FH blurb announces it will lay off 140 employees by the end of October, despite ending the fiscal year nearly $37 million in the black. And then for salt in the wounds, the hospital has leased 19 robots to fulfill a range of tasks, from delivering medication and food to taking out trash.

"Hiring as many humans to make deliveries would have cost the hospital more than $1 million a year," said the vice-president of facilities and support services. Leasing the robots from Aethon costs $350,000 a year. And this is all part of the hospital's "Accelerating Continuous Excellence" program.

I don't know about you but I am sick of people putting pretty names on what essentially are cost cutting or revenue enhancement programs. People see through this stuff. And as a marketer I am embarrassed. Because many times the brand my colleagues promise is not the brand that is delivered. The programs above have little to do with your better experience or mine.

Healthcare is just as much about human relations, empathy, comfort as it is about clinical care. I am sure robots are more efficient and cost less but what is the ultimate cost to the patient? I know MY experience would be enhanced when the robot is "speaking politely with workers and patients."

Patient experience. Everyone's talking about it but few do anything about it. How do you enhance care with an unsympathetic robot? How do you enhance care when a patient in my doctor's office (an orthopedic practice) is in pain and need to be lying down in a room but is told the doctor is running behind and you have to wait in the seating area?

Maybe the staff should ask themselves--"Would I be insulted by this behavior?"--and let that guide their actions. And please stop couching these programs as the best thing since Mother Teresa. The public is more intelligent than that.

Look, maybe I am just irked from a few isolated examples. You tell me.

But I am reminded of a television show from my youth called "Lost in Space." And I am beginning to believe that healthcare providers are lost in space given how they act sometimes. The robot in that movie was constantly shouting "that does not compute" and "Danger Will Robinson." Maybe it was on to something.

Anthony Cirillo, FACHE, ABC, is president of Fast Forward Consulting, which specializes in experience management and strategic marketing for healthcare facilities.