Orlando — Walt Disney World has long warmed the hearts of families, while building loyalty over the years with incentive groups. But the Florida theme park destination also is carving out a powerful niche within the health care industry for the unique training offerings of its onsite Disney Institute.
The Institute teaches Disney's own best practices for quality control and customer satisfaction, which are sought by many businesses but especially prized by health care institutions.
Today, health care attendees make up the largest proportion of the Institute's client base.
"This is not an emphasis by design," said Bruce Jones, the Disney Institute's programming director. "Health care, by word of mouth, has found that the Institute translates extremely well with what they are trying to do with patients."
Anyone who's ever visited a Disney theme park or hotel is aware of the company's relentless cheer and presentation, focused like a light beam on visitors and their level of satisfaction.
It's an excellent staff model for the health care industry, Jones said.
"In the hospital waiting room, people may or may not remember what you did for them, but they will remember how you made them feel," he said.
Consider the experience of Merlin Aalborg, CEO of Denver's Colorado Acute Specialty Care Hospital. After hearing about the process when he was CEO for a sister hospital in New Orleans, he sent small teams to Orlando to experience the training for themselves.
He was impressed with the results, and asked Disney to send its own trainers to New Orleans to help develop his customer service program. Since then, he's sent segments of his entire staff from both hospitals, including physicians, through the Disney Institute.
"People think of Disney as pure entertainment," Aalborg noted. "And at first, that was part of my expectations. But we discovered why that approach is so valuable: Your abilities to quantify the gains you make in customer service drive revenue to the bottom line."
Aalborg said staff now react more quickly and happily to the needs of patients, family members and physicians, who also are considered his hospital's "customers."
"Anybody's who's in the service business is in the business of meeting the needs of his customer," said Scott Gordon, executive vice president and chief operating officer with Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. "Disney is in the business of fulfilling dreams. My job is providing care, love and hope.
"We're in the same business."
Gordon sent his first group through the Institute in 2001, with other staff in different departments following. The resultant core of 80 Institute graduates then helped formulate a model for the entire organization.
Disney's methods go well beyond its familiar hospitality.
"We learned from Disney, for example, that people don't look more than 26 feet away for a trash can," Gordon said. "So we added trash cans, and things are now cleaner. Also, the signs are purple and red at Disney. Why? That's been researched, and those are the colors people react to and remember."
In addition to signage, all security personnel at Arkansas Children's now wear purple polo shirts, he said.
The direct benefit to Arkansas Children's has been powerful. Turnover is down, so Gordon has been able to reduce the expense of part-time nurses. The hospital's bottom line has improved "dramatically," he said.
The Disney Institute offers an off-the-shelf course, or customizes ones for particular groups or industries. A typical three-and-a-half-day program, with field experience in the park, averages $549 per attendee per day, including breaks, F&B and lodging. The program also is made available at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, Calif.
Contact Christopher Hosford at
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