It’s official. Customer satisfaction scores have become serious business in health care. Beginning in October 2012, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will link $850 million of reimbursement payments to a new measure: patient survey results. The questions focus on dimensions of the overall experience that haven’t been front and center in the minds of some caregivers until now. Bedside manner was always part of being a good and caring physician. Soon it will directly affect the bottom line.

Starting next year, the satisfaction stakes will go up significantly in the health care industry, and providers across the country are gearing up to shift their sights to questions like, "Did you receive information on what to do after leaving the hospital?" and "Did your doctors and nurses communicate well?" and "Did you receive help on a timely basis?" Some hospitals are hiring coaches to work with providers and staff to optimize clear and kind communication and to help provide patients with the kind of care and service they hope to receive.

Last week I had the opportunity to interview Andrea Kates of the Business Genome Project and author of "Find Your Next." She speaks and consults across multiple industries to cultivate "crosspitality"– her term for the art and science of grafting hospitality practices from one industry onto another. She is convinced that providers can dramatically improve their patient ratings by learning to extract the elements of a great customer, client or guest experience from role models in other industries and then create the best service mosaic.

Sharp HealthCare is a California-based hospital system that won the Baldrige National Quality Award after it implemented a crosspitality mindset. How did it do it? Sharp studied the concierge spirit of the Ritz-Carlton hotels, the operations and procedures of Disney and the cleanliness standards of major restaurant chains to piece together a powerful and extremely effective combination of the best service elements that added up to a most satisfied patient.

Over the course of the improvement cycle, Sharp HealthCare significantly enhanced its patient perceptions of "quality care" from 28 percent to more than 90 percent. In the new reimbursement scheme, that will directly contribute to Sharp’s bottom line.

Hawaii has been highly successful in bringing traditional Hawaiian core values into the visitor industry in a genuine way. Values that include relationship to place, caring for the land, the importance of family and sincere respect of others have served to give visitors a true sense of the unique beauty of the Hawaiian Islands and our indigenous culture. To the extent that this has been done in a sensitive way and according to protocol, it also has served to protect, preserve and perpetuate the Hawaiian culture.

In the spirit of crosspitality, it is time to integrate lessons learned by our own hospitality and visitor industry into the way we serve those who receive health care in Hawaii. Beginning in October 2012, it will definitely have an impact on the bottom line. More important, it’s the right thing to do.

Ira Zunin, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., is medical director of Manakai o Malama Integrative Healthcare Group and Rehabilitation Center and CEO of Global Advisory Services Inc. Please submit your questions to info@manakaiomalama.com.