Frequently Asked Questions
Question Topics
Malone Advisory Services
When was Malone Advisory Services established?
The company was founded in 2005 by Mary Malone, President of Malone Advisory Services.
What is Malone Advisory Services' philosophy of service performance improvement?
Mary is passionate about patient-inspired excellence.Learn about her 16 P's for Patient-Inspired Excellence.
Does Malone Advisory Services conduct long-term client engagements?
Mary works with clients in a variety of ways. Mary's most successful engagements are often a one-day on-site engagement gives the client the "jump-start" they need to initiate or continue their service performance journey.
Mary has taken this approach because she believes that most organizations are inherently capable of making the improvements in their leadership practices that will result in improvements to patient/family experiences. Her experience is that organizations need to step back and make an honest assessment of their service performance improvement efforts to date.
As all client engagements are customized, please contact Malone Advisory Services directly to discuss your needs in this regard.
Does Malone Advisory Services work with clients outside of the healthcare industry?
While Mary's expertise is in improving patient and family experiences with all aspects of the healthcare system, many of the concepts covered in her sessions can be generalized to other service industries. As all client engagements are customized, please contact Mary to discuss your potential project.
May I contact Malone Advisory Services' clients for a reference?
Of course! Satisfied clients have contributed their testimonials for your review. You can contact also contact Mary to request contact information for client references.
How can we get in touch with Malone Advisory Services to discuss setting up an engagement?
You can contact Mary directly by email at: mary@maloneadvisoryservices.com or by phone at: 574-876-3039 to discuss your project
If you already know when you would like to schedule an on-site visit, you can check Mary's availability.
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Mary P. Malone
What is Mary's educational background?
Mary received an M.S. in Health Systems Management from Rush University in Chicago, IL and her Juris Doctor from the University of Notre Dame Law School. She also holds a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Notre Dame.
What is Mary's consulting experience?
Mary has more than thirty years of consulting experience in the healthcare industry. Prior to forming Malone Advisory Services, she worked for Press Ganey Associates - the nation's largest healthcare satisfaction measurement and improvement company - for nearly 15 years, serving in a variety of senior leadership positions in corporate development, marketing, communications, customer service and sales. Mary's most recent position at Press Ganey was Executive Director, Consulting Services where she served as the primary client contact for all consulting engagements. Her professional career began as a health care consultant in a national accounting and consulting firm.
What are the professional associations with which Mary is affiliated?
Mary is a member of the board of directors for The Center for Health Design, an organization dedicated to using principles of evidence-based design to create better healthcare environments. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Rush Center for Healthcare Management and Policy Research. In addition, Mary is a member of several other professional associations, including The Leader's Board for Service Excellence, Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy and Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development.
What are the publications to which Mary has contributed as an author or editor?
A prolific writer, in 2005 Mary co-edited book Making It Right: Healthcare Service Recovery Tools, Techniques and Best Practices. She also recently authored chapters in Improving Healthcare with Better Building Design edited by Sara Marberry and Patient Satisfaction: Understanding and Managing the Experience of Care, Second Edition by Irwin Press, PhD. She is a contributing editor for Masterpieces in Health Care Leadership: Cases and Analysis for Best Practices, published by Jones & Bartlett in 2007.
Mary has also published numerous articles in leading healthcare journals such as Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Safety, Strategies for Healthcare Excellence, Trustee, Quality Review Bulletin, Journal of Employee Health Benefits, and Healthcare Financial Management. Her columns were a regular and popular feature of The Satisfaction Monitor, a client publication of Press Ganey Associates.
Download Mary's Curriculum Vita.
What role has Mary played in furthering service performance improvement in the healthcare industry on a national level?
An insightful strategist, Mary writes and speaks often about various aspects of patient satisfaction. She is a sought after commentator on the future of customer service in healthcare and gives several hundred presentations each year to hospitals, healthcare organizations and professional societies. She's widely recognized as an expert resource for individuals and teams helping to create "Wow" experiences for patients, families, physicians and healthcare professionals.
In addition to hundreds of client presentations, and workshops at Press Ganey-sponsored national and regional conferences, Mary is a frequent contributor at healthcare industry meetings in roles ranging from keynoter speaker to workshop leader. Among the national organizations that have recently invited her participation: American College of Healthcare Executives, VHA, Inc., Forum for Healthcare Strategists, Society for Healthcare Marketing and Strategy Development, Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and the state hospital associations of Iowa, Montana and Texas.
What is Mary's approach to working with clients?
Mary's work with health care organizations falls into three broad categories ranging from presentations and workshops, to more in-depth consulting and to ongoing coaching.
Catalyst/Presentations
Consulting/In-Depth Services
Coaching/Ongoing.
Clients are usually introduced to Mary with one of her inspirational and educational speeches or workshops; but the Service Leadership Assessment Project is another popular starting point.
What is Mary's presentation style?
Captivating, inspirational, practical, and down-to-earth are often-used descriptions of Mary's presentations and workshops. Here's what clients have to say.
What has been Mary's commitment to her local community?
Mary is active in her local community, South Bend, IN, supporting organizations such as the Center for the Homeless in South Bend and is a former board member of the Literacy Council for St. Joseph County. Involved as an alumna of the Department of Health Systems Management (HSM) at Rush University, she has recently served on several departmental committees and is a Past-President of the HSM Alumni Association. She has served as adjunct lecturer in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University-South Bend and is a guest lecturer in the Department of Health Systems Management at Rush University in Chicago.
What are the various roles that Mary can serve at my organization?
In Mary's roles as consultant, catalyst, and coach, she can help your healthcare leaders integrate the patient/family perspective into both strategy development and performance improvement initiatives.
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Catalyst Presentations
What is meant by "catalyst sessions?"
Catalyst services are stand-alone sessions that can be conducted in either a workshop or formal presentation format. They are designed to educate and inspire leadership groups and/or employee groups around various service performance improvement topics. The goal of these sessions is to serve as a catalyst for making tangible changes to existing service plans.
What are the most commonly requested catalyst sessions?
Some of the most commonly requested catalyst sessions include:
- The 99th Percentile Leader
- How and Why to Wow
- 90 Wow Ideas in 90 Minutes
- Words that Wound, Words that Work, Words that Wow
- The Power of Wow; The Power of You
- Service Recovery Strategies
- Best Practices in Reward and Recognition Programs
- Service Mapping: What it is and How to Use It
View last year's most popular workshop topics.
What types of audiences would benefit from Malone Advisory Services' catalyst sessions?
Catalyst sessions can benefit all leadership groups in your organization - whether boards, executives, physicians, managers or front-line employees - by educating and inspiring them to incorporate customer service as a competitive advantage and growth strategy.
To what extent can catalyst sessions be customized for the client?
Malone Advisory Services prides itself on meeting each client where they are as a unique organization. For this reason, Mary conducts in-depth interviews with every client prior to any on-site work so that all meetings, workshops, and presentations can be customized appropriately.
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Consulting / In-depth Services
What types of consulting services are provided by Malone Advisory Services?
Examples of Malone Advisory Services' consulting services include such activities as:
- H-CAHPS/patient/employee/physician data analysis and recommendations
- Facilitation of service improvement discussions with work units and other teams
- Diagnostic observations of service performance strengths and shortcomings
- "Fresh Eyes" Walk-throughs of customer experiences through a patient/family perspective
- Service Leadership Assessment Projects: Formal leadership surveys to gather information about "What's Right/Wrong" in the organization's current approach to service performance
Tell me more about Malone Advisory Services' Service Leadership Assessment Projects?
Clients have found formal surveys of their leadership groups to be an effective way of gathering information about "What's Right/Wrong" in the organization's current approach to service performance. A typical Service Leadership Assessment Project leadership survey involves emailing 10 open-ended questions to all leaders/managers in advance of Mary's on-site meeting. The results are analyzed and presented to workshop attendees on the day of the on-site.
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Coaching / Ongoing
What types of coaching services are provided by Malone Advisory Services?
Mary serves as an ongoing resource to all of her clients to respond to the various challenges they encounter as they continue on their service performance improvement journeys. Coaching services can range from brief follow-up phone calls or e-mail correspondence at no charge to the client to supplementary on-site coaching sessions where an additional financial investment is required (see "Fees" section below).
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Engagement Preparation
What type of data and/or information will Malone Advisory Services need access to in order to prepare to work with our organization?
Mary will want to understand the status of the organization's current approach to service excellence in order to design the optimal approach to working together. This is typically accomplished via one or two pre-engagement conference calls. In addition, it is helpful for Mary to have access to existing client materials connected to service delivery (e.g. service standards, mission/vision/values statements, employee newsletters, service recovery protocols, etc.) as well as patient/employee satisfaction data.
We are a Press Ganey client. Can Malone Advisory Services access our eCompass account?
Yes. With your permission, Malone Advisory Services can work with your Press Ganey consultant to obtain access to your organization's account. Fee discounts are available for Press Ganey clients who provide e-Compass access to their satisfaction data.
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Fees
What is the investment associated with Malone Advisory Services' consulting/assessment, catalyst, and coaching services?
In general, the first full day of on-site presentations, coaching and/or consulting work with a client involves an investment of $6,000 plus
reasonable reimbursable travel and material expenses. The fees include all preparatory work and travel time. Each subsequent, consecutive day of on-site work is provided at a
rate of $3,000 per day. Discounts are available for Press Ganey clients who provide e-Compass access to their satisfaction data.
Additional discounts are available for clients wishing to schedule Mary for six or more separate occasions throughout the calendar year.
Is there a discount available for Press Ganey clients?
Discounts are available for Press Ganey clients who provide e-Compass access to their satisfaction data.
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