There’s a secret to drastically improving your patient experience, and it might surprise you: better chairside chemistry with the person working next to you! When you and your assistants are aligned, you’ll flow like a well-oiled machine, and your patients will feel it. Your workflow will become more efficient and predictable, your patient experience will transform, and both you and your team member will find more satisfaction in what you do. To unlock these benefits, use these three keys!
- Huddle
Great chemistry starts at the beginning of the day, and there’s no better way to build that than with a well-organized huddle. A morning huddle creates alignment, brings clarity, and sets you up for success. One way to ensure your huddle’s success is to make sure you’re thoroughly preparing your charts. Each team member must bring these patient information highlights and share them so that there’s alignment before the patient even walks through the door:
- Personal information
- DiSC style
- Today’s treatment
- Outstanding treatment
- Medical alerts
- Specialists seen
- Lab preferences
- Checklists
Checklists are an incredibly useful tool that will bring predictability to your appointments. Appointments can be complex, but a procedure checklist removes that complexity and replaces it with simplicity. Just think, when you’re in those complex appointments, it’s easy to forget a step or an important tool, but a checklist will let you know exactly what you need to do and what to have out for every appointment. No more getting up mid-procedure to grab a necessity—it’s on the checklist! It will make you sure of what you’re doing, and the patient will notice that confidence and have an increase in trust and security. Like Kirk says, “When you create a system or checklist, you save thousands and thousands of hours in the future,” so laminate your checklists and keep them hanging on rings in each operatory to make your life easier!
- Hand-off
The hand-off is my favorite key to improving chairside chemistry, but it’s also the most important. It’s a simple concept—an exchange of information between you and the doctor, but when you loop the patient in, it puts everyone on the same page. The power of the hand-off is that it reduces uncertainty for the patient by making them feel taken care of. It increases trust, which increases the likelihood of them accepting treatment. Perhaps most importantly, though, is that the hand-off demonstrates your commitment to a high level of customer service. By being intentional about it, you’ll make the patient feel like they’re the most important person in the office, and they’ll know they’re in the right place.
Just as you know when something is off between you and the chairside assistant, so too does the patient. When that happens, you need to put your efforts into the huddle, the checklist, and the hand-off, but you also must pour your effort into your assistant. They want to make your day easier, and with your help, you can empower them to do so.
You don’t have to make this journey toward a Better Practice and a Better Life alone, so let us help! Reach out to Gina to learn more about what we can do, and join us in August for our To The Top Study Club session and learn how becoming a healthy leader will result in a happy team!
Tune in next time and learn the secret to enhancing your efficiency!
