CATEGORY 128 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST A great patient visit is created, it does not just happen. A great visit or experience that is consistent and positive is the sign of a great team and a well thought through team game plan. Every practice follows traditionally the same steps to manage a patient visit from the first contact (the first time a patient is introduced to your practice) to departure. The fundamentals approach It is important that your practice establish a framework for ensuring that your team can deliver to a high standard consistently to all clients, every time. One of the key components of this task will be the construction of a set of service standards. These standards will represent the minimum levels of performance required from your practices and staff in key areas impacting on client satisfaction. What are standards? In every practice, there will be critical incidents in the client’s experience that shapes the assessment of that experience. Where these “moments of truth” or “moments that matter” are not performed to client expectations, loss of goodwill and eventual loss of the client are themost likely outcomes Service Standards document the way that a practice will manage these critical incidents, and are typically: u formulated from widely recognised best standards of industry practice u used to bring consistency and control to an inherently variable area Practice Fundamentals (Part 2) By Dr Michael Ryan Over a series of articles, I’ll be exploring and sharing some of what I’ve learnt and observed over the past 35 years in business and most of that in dentistry. u observable (and thus measurable) behaviours that all team members are required to fulfil We recommend that you create your own practice standards to define the desired outcome rather than prescribe exactlywhat has to be done. In this way, staff members can use their unique knowledge of their clients to work out the best way of achieving the standard. This also has the valuable side effect of creating a sense of “ownership” of the process among frontline staff, which is critical to their acceptance and implementation. What needs to be done? The basic steps in the process of developing and implementing your service standards will be: 1. Identify themoments of truth, and what clients expect at these points within your practice 2. Develop service standards that encapsulate the expected experience 3. Prepare materials which will assist practices to achieve these standards 4. Measure success and modify as appropriate We recommend you draw heavily upon the experience of practice staff in carrying out the above steps. Together, we will develop a model of the critical incidents in a client visit in your practice, and define the client’s expected outcome at each point. This model will then be used to develop a preliminary set of service standards, which should again be submitted to a forum of your team for comment. The Fundamentals Step by Step Approach – break the whole experience down and work on each element Delivering a great patient visit is a stepby-step approach to building your own exceptional patient experience. Stop, walk through your practice as a patient would, take notes on how it makes you feel and get your team to do the same. Only then can you and your team start developing standards, organising the team to deliver the standards and a program formonitoring great service delivery. This is linked to client satisfaction programs, treatment planning, appointment management and continuous care programs. Our goal at Acumen Dental is to share the secrets of a great practice with you and provide your teamwith the tools to improve the care for patients. u If like us, you see this as an important area to manage in your practice, you might also consider starting to Prescribe and Dispense – we have a range of FREE tools and Resources to get you started at www.acumen.dental. RE AILING Mike Ryan A great patient visit – Build your own! When times are challenging, we need to go back to the fundamentals: Getting patients to your practice – getting business When patients arrive – running an efficient and efficient practice – doing business It’s not what you make – it’s what you keep those matters – keeping more
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