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The First Impression Team: How Non-Clinical Staff Shape Patient Care
Residency Reflections #9
Jared Dashevsky, MD
September 17, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
RESIDENCY REFLECTIONS
The First Impression Team: How Non-Clinical Staff Shape Patient Care
At my hospital, the custodial staff wear a uniform with the words “First Impression Team” on the back.
I love this.
The custodial staff aren’t just cleaning. They’re setting the stage for everything that follows. When you walk into a well-kept hospital with gleaming floors and tidy rooms, there’s an unspoken message: this is a place that takes care seriously. A clean, organized hospital sets the expectation that the care patients receive will be just as meticulous.
It struck me how fitting the label is—this team really does create the first impression. Patients and their families may not notice the precise way a floor is mopped, but they do feel the warmth of a well-maintained environment. In many ways, their first interaction with the healthcare system starts with this visual and emotional cue.
And what about the last impression?
As providers, we are the “Last Impression Team.” We’re often the final touchpoint for patients before they leave the hospital, whether it’s through discharge or in the context of end-of-life care. The conversations we have, the decisions we help make, and the tone we set in those final interactions leave a lasting mark. Our impact can either provide closure, clarity, and confidence or, conversely, uncertainty and frustration.
In a sense, the custodial staff and the clinical teams bookend the patient experience. The custodial staff lay the foundation, and we—nurses, doctors, therapists—are the closing chapter. Both impressions matter equally. A patient may forget the details of their surgery or the specific medications they were given, but they’ll remember how the hospital made them feel, from the moment they entered to the moment they left.
It’s a reminder that every interaction, from the first impression to the last, is an opportunity to shape a patient’s experience. Both ends of this spectrum—those who clean and those who heal—are deeply intertwined in the delivery of high-quality care.
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