Caring for those who care: the role of the occupational health nurse in disasters.

Since the events of 9/11, health care facilities have devoted substantial resources to emergency preparedness, especially for a surge of patients in a large-scale incident. Hurricane Katrina reinforced the need for such surge planning. Due to the SARS experience in Toronto, health care professionals have had increased awareness of their "duty-to-care" responsibility.

Improving managed care value through customer service.

The ability of managed care providers to deliver high-quality customer service to managed care customers depends on their adoption of basic customer-service principles. To apply these principles effectively, providers need to understand and work to exceed the particular needs and expectations of these customers, which include boards of directors, senior executives, physicians, healthcare providers, clinical and patient financial services managers and staff, employers, brokers, and patients. Although these needs and expectations can be predicted to some extent, providers would be wise to implement regular surveys of customers and an open procedure for soliciting customer feedback about service issues.