Hospitality in Healthcare: Unify Medical's Take on Improving the Patient Experience

When looking at how to improve the patient experience in a clinic or hospital, the hospitality industry’s focus on customer service can be a great reference point. How well a patient feels and how properly they are taken care of are both essential in improving quality of care. This has been emphasized even more so with the impact of the pandemic. Incorporating more hospitality in healthcare can help bring in more “soft” aspects (like comfort and warmth) to the patient experience that are often overlooked. 

Unify Medical is a prime example of a clinic that prioritizes these “soft” aspects of the patient experience without jeopardizing outcomes or cost. Sameer Mawji, the founder of Unify Medical, uses his business acumen and hospitality experience as the foundation of the patient experience.

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At Cherry Health, we love promoting clinics, hospitals and organizations that are taking a new and improved approach to providing healthcare services. To dig deeper into Unify Medical’s take on their patient experience, we conducted an interview to find out the details.

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CH: Why did you start Unify Medical and what is your vision?

SAMEER: At Unify Medical we believe in not reinventing the wheel, but to fix what is broken! We put ourselves in the shoes of our patients and make sure they get the physician experience they deserve. We want to provide an efficient, well-run and welcoming space.

Our vision is to leverage our hospitality background and the emphasis on customer service as the main element, always focusing on always improving the patient experience.
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CH: I think that’s more important right now than ever.. Can you go deeper into how your hospitality background influenced your approach?

SAMEER: We made sure to use specific pieces when building the clinic, like spending money on materials that are durable and sanitized yet bring in warmth to the space. Walls are 100% anti-microbial, our flooring is commercially graded and have ever-lasting product durability. We also like to educate our patients by including TVs in each room displaying informative content to patients. This helps us provide a space that is welcoming, efficient and with physicians in mind.

‍CH: That sounds awesome, but also expensive to build!

SAMEER: Utilizing our hospitality vendors, the materials were at a much lesser price margin and development was 3x faster; we wanted to also make sure it was cost-effective. It only took us 12 weeks to build the Clinic.

CH: That’s very impressive. Can you tell us about the patient-centric approach, from a physician standpoint?

SAMEER: We created a holistic environment to ensure all physicians are equipped with the right tools: making sure there is enough support staff, the room stocked and that the whole process is run efficiently so they are getting enough one-on-one time with the patients.

A Physician once commented,

“ A physician can’t do their job if the people supporting them can’t do theirs.”

That's why we’ve created this environment at Unify Medical.

CH: What is your approach to hiring and retaining physicians?

SAMEER: Unify is definitely unique in the sense of what we are offering. We spend a lot of time and money on physicians, which allows them to also make more money. We hire Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN), paying them a higher premium to provide support to physicians, making sure patients get extra attention and care.

Additionally, We also work with banks and wealth management institutions to make sure physicians make better decisions in other areas in their life, too. We also provide a benefits package, billing services and negotiated preferential pricing for Unify.

CH: How would you describe the culture at Unify Medical?

SAMEER: At Unify Medical, we believe in training and creating a welcoming environment; this is paramount to our Clinic. We believe in the term “we always try our best”. We have the doctor’s back and understand that the patient isn’t always right. Doctors' jobs at Unity all depend on the people who support them.

CH: As we wrap this up I just want to ask what’s next for Unify Medical?

SAMEER: Finding strong physicians and for patients to have the same level of

quality care across the city. Our mantra is to expand and continue to grow, having a scalable

model and a prototypical and a manageable product. We want to get more clinics up and running to allow physicians to be flexible to move to parts of the city.

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Learn more about Unify Medical here.

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