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Hospital Impact can also be seen through:
by Tony Chen
"We're all about making children happy, they are all about health and making children healthy. I think when you combine that together it's a very powerful one-two combination. - Disney Rep"
Just in case you hadn't seen it, Disney is going into the hospital business. With its $10MM donation, this newly renovated children's hospital in Orlando will bear the Disney name and benefit from Disney "imagineers" for how the patient (and family) experience should be. Previously we wondered in great detail what would happen if Disney ran your hospital. Now we're going to find out.
(by the way, after I wrote that series, I got a lot of criticism from people who thought Disney & fun just can't mix with the serious business of healthcare.)
Nonetheless, I continue to believe that this is a great development for healthcare. Customer delight and hard-core clinical outcomes are not mutually exclusive (in fact, some would argue that they are positively correlated!) How much better can a kid fight off a life-threatening disease if the environment isn't so intimidating, cold, or unfamiliar? This will be a great little test case.
I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when Disney execs discussed the pros and cons of this fairly risky business decision. Did they think about the risk of having their name on a facility where kids may die? Did they think this could be so successful that other Disney hospitals would start popping up all around the world? Did they think about whether this would be a brand-diluting move? Did they realize what a sleeping giant they may have awakened? Did they realize that this move may eventually challenge all hospitals to "imagineer" and redefine the patient experience? Do they know what they are getting themselves into with bad debt, collectibles, malpractice, and lawsuits?
Then again, $10MM for them is a drop in the bucket (they made $3.4 billion in net income last year). To them, this is probably a little experiment that could generate a lot of positive PR & leverages their brand/core segment perfectly.
What do you think? Physicians - how would you feel working at "the Disney Hospital?"