CATEGORY 90 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST Dear Dr Toni, How important is it to have SOPs? Dr FL, Qld. Great question! Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are really useful in practices. I know they can take time to get right, but trying to operate without them is a big challenge. The benefits of them are all in the name: they’re standard (which creates consistency and certainty) and show team members the way procedures are meant to be done in your practice (i.e. the way you want them done). Once they’re done, they can be used as training tools for both new and existing teammembers. One of the main objections to doing SOPs is that they take a lot of time to create, and this is true to an extent, but once they’re in place they actually save time because people make fewer mistakes and less time is spent undoing errors. The most effective ways to create them in the first place are: Divide up the tasks so that different people are responsible for creating different SOPs (e.g. have your surgery team work together to create SOPs for the surgeries, and your admin staff work together to create SOPs for the front desk). Pre-block time each week for everyone to do them. Even getting a few completed each month is better than not starting it at all. Consider a combination of documentation and videos. For example, your SOPs might have a quick video that shows how to process a HICAPS payment, and a more document with photos that show how to set up trays for different procedures. Don’t worry if they’re not perfect! They don’t need to be highly polished; they just need to be usable. The other big objection I hear to getting SOPs done is that they never get used; people seem to worry that they’re going to invest the time into creating a document that sits on a shelf gathering dust. My solution to this is simple: just use them! Get each teammember in the habit of referring BEST PRACTICES Q&A BESTPRACTICES Q&A with Dr Toni Surace 4 Dr Toni Surace BDSC (Melb) Managing Director, Momentum Management Mentor, coach and international presenter. It’s always best practice to develop business skills, systems, techniques and industry knowledge that could impact your practice. BEST PRACTICES Q&A is a forum allowing you to ask the tough questions to Australasian Dentist columnist Dr Toni Surace. to the SOPs when they can’t remember how to do something or if the responsible person is away. If all of your systems are documented, and the SOPs are kept upto-date, most people who work in your practice should be able to step in to help anywhere you’re short-staffed. Another benefit of SOPs is that they standardise different ways of doing things in the practice; everyone has access to the same information about the ways you want things done. For example, you can use them for guidance if you have some DAs who have been shown one way to do things, and other DAs who have been trained differently. Let’s say someone has a preference for stocking rooms before they go home, but others like to organise their own room in the morning. You can use the SOPs to make a determination on how the procedure is done in your practice, which then reduces confusion and conflict. Similarly, any updates to infection control can be put straight into the SOPs and your team members held accountable for doing things in the most up-to-date manner. It’s worth investing the time to get them done! Dear Dr Toni, Cancellations are really bad at the moment. What’s the best way to use our down-time? Dr AL, NSW. I understand where you’re coming from. Most of our clients all around Australia and New Zealand are experiencing the same thing. Before talking about what to do during down-time, I want to make something clear: it’s a bad idea to have everyone (i.e. patients and the team) getting into the habit of cancellations being too easy. That will be a hard habit to break! If the patient does have a genuine illness, front desk coordinators should be expressing sympathy (e.g. “Oh, that sounds horrible. I hope you’re OK.”), and trying to get the patient to rebook (e.g. “So that you don’t have to stress about this appointment, how about we rebook it now?”). If the patient really can’t, then make sure you have a good follow-up system to capture them. The verbal skills might be, “I can tell that you can’t commit right now. How about this: if we haven’t heard back from you in three weeks’ time, we’ll call and see how you are.” Then schedule that follow-up call into your follow-up system (e.g. in your software). If do you end up with gaps, make sure that you have a good priority system. I usually suggest that each clinician in the practice has a list of at least 30 names on it so that your FOCs are more likely to be able to find someone who can fill gaps in the books.The best way to do that is to ask every patient as they’re leaving an appointment whether or not they would want to be called sooner if there’s a change in the practice’s schedule. Not all of them will, but anyone who’s open to it can then go on the priority list. If you can’t fill the gap, make sure that you have down-time lists in the practice. Youmight have some that include everyone, e.g. some training you want everyone to take part in. You might have down-time lists for the surgery team that include tasks like deep cleaning, stocktake, instrument counts, or some DA-specific training e.g. in pouring models or charting. Document, too, what you want OHTs or hygienists to prioritise during down-time; for example, do you want them on the phones trying to fill their own books, or sharpening instruments? Here’s a tip for creating down-time lists: every time during a staff meeting someone says, “I don’t have time for that”, you put that task onto a down-time list. Then, when down-time occurs, they can check the list for a task that will take about the same amount of time as is available. Most good team members are aware of the tasks that don’t get done, so the trick is to systematise keeping those tasks on a list to which they can refer. “ “
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