College students help local hospital

A group of four students at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee wants to inject hospitality into the hospital industry.

The students, in USF's College of Hospitality and Technology Leadership, got their start in a recent three-month partnership with Blake Medical Center in Bradenton. “We asked our students to look at the hospital experience through the eyes of the hospitality industry,” says the dean of the College of Hospitality and Technology Leadership, Cihan Cobanoglu, in a statement. “Our field offers the greatest expertise in creating hospitable and healthy environments. Why not apply some of these same principles to hospitals?”

The students, after interviewing employees and studying the facility, wrote a 68-page paper with suggestions on how the hospital can be more customer-friendly. That's a task the hospital, owned by HCA, has already honed in on, according to Blake President and CEO Dan Friedrich. Says Friedrich, in the release: “Over the past several years, Blake has been focused on creating high-amenity specialty units to combine clinical excellence with a high-service, hotel-like environment for our patients.”

The partnership with USF, he says, enhances that plan and provides an outside perspective. The suggestions in the paper include adding uplifting and invigorating color schemes, implementing enhanced lighting and creating user-friendly furniture layouts. Other suggestions were to improve employee motivation and recognition.

And finally, there was the obvious fix when talking about making hospitals more hospitable: improving food quality.