Do you know what an effective team is? Do you think that your practice has an effective team? If unsure, you might find this pearl effective in determining that.
WHAT IS A TEAM?
The dictionary defines a team as “a group of individuals organized to work together”, which is not helpful for our purposes. A better definition might be: “a group of individuals effectively working together with the same purpose”. And in a health care practice that purpose would be: “to provide the patients with the best possible care in a safe, positive environment staffed with team members who love the patients and love working together”. Unfortunately, this doesn’t just happen because we want it to; it requires a lot of effort. For a practice to be able to fulfill that team purpose, its team members must be properly selected, trained and scheduled by a doctor who uses an effective treatment philosophy. It takes a doctor at least five yours to develop his or her own effective treatment philosophy. A doctor’s education does not include effective practice management, which can be learned in less than five years—wioth help, some learn quickly, but some never bother to learn.
An effective team member should have a positive attitude, the mental and physical ability to do the job, be trained to perform their procedures well and be properly scheduled to perform them. Team members with a poor self image and/or a negative attitude about life will ruin your practice. An improperly trained team member cannot effectively perform your patient procedures, requiring others to clean up after her. An over-scheduled (too few team members in that position) team will not give the team members sufficient time to perform their procedures and an under-scheduled (to many staff members) team will become bore, causing negativity and resignations. This pearl provides a succinct understanding of what you can do to have a more effective team and a more positive work environment. Reference links are provided should you desire more details on a subject.
THE “CATCH-22”: “You cannot hire and train staff unless you know your staffing needs—you don’t know your staffing needs until you design your scheduling system—and you can’t use a scheduling system unless you have the required staff.” To get around this Catch-22, refer to the table below to for a ballpark estimation of your probable staffing needs, based on your Full Starts/Day (FS/D).
Your FS/D (Full Starts/Day) worked is your Equivalent Full Starts/year divided by your Tx Days/year.
Your Equivalent Full Starts/year is your Comprehensive (Full) Starts plus 0.5 times your Ph-I & Limited starts:
For example:
(120 Comprehensive Starts/year + 0.5 X 60 Ph-I/Lim Starts/year) divided by 150 Days/year = 1.00 FS/D.
Refer to this table for your possible FS/D Staffing requirements. Also refer to “Practice Odyssey, Part-4, SCHEDULING” for possible ways of combining team members into positions.
THE ORGANIZATION & HIRING PROCESS:
Effective ORGANIZATION:
Your practice should be properly ORGANIZED with each team member having an adequate amount of time to do her procedures. If you have too few team members in a position they will be overworked. If you have too many team members in a position they will get bored and may leave.
The table above helps, but you can also refer to the pearl: “Practice Odyssey, Part-1, Team Staffing” for the effective ORGANIZATION of your team.
Effective HIRING:
Your practice should have an effective HIRING system to hire the best person the first time. Refer to the “Practice Odyssey, Part-2, HIRING” pearl for effective team hiring. When HIRING the ideal team member you need to take certain things into consideration; they are.
Attitude: The dictionary defines a person’s attitude as: “A state of mind or a feeling”, but for our purposes it should be “a positive state of mind about working with others on patients”. In the practice organization and hiring process, a team member’s attitude is measured multiple ways.
When writing you a note on lineless paper, if their words slant upward to the right they have a positive attitude about life—if their words slant downward they have a negative attitude.
If their work history shows that they stay on a job for many years they have a positive attitude about working—if they only stay on the job for a year or so they have a negative attitude towards working.
If their “Belief Systems” show that they have a poor self-image, they will doubt themselves and may be hesitant about doing their procedures. Also, if those beliefs show that they are not a team player (a gossip, etc.) they may disrupt your team’s cohesiveness.
Mental Ability to Learn: A prospective team member must have the ability to be effectively trained in a reasonable amount of time. The “mental skills” part of the hiring process measures their skills in Alphabetization, Mathematics, Spelling and Grammar. If they do well on this evaluation they will learn quickly—if they do poorly, it will take longer than you may be willing to spend training them.
Physical Ability to Learn: A prospective clinical team member (chairside, records and lab) must have the physical ability to effectively work on patients. The “wire-bending test”, which is part of the hiring process measures that ability.
Position Personality: A team member’s Personality Profile is very helpful in determining whether she can handle the emotional and rational aspects in a position WHEN DISTRESSED. Any capable person can work in any position if not distressed; but if that person’s personality attributes work well under stress in that position, than she is a good candidate for that position.
CAUTION: While evaluating an experience chairside for a clinical position DO NOT let them work in the patient’s mouth to see how well they perform, you can get into a lot of trouble! Refer to the “Don’t be Liable with Applicants” pearl.
THE TRAINING PROCESS
Once you hire the required people, you need to train them using an effective training system to train them in weeks instead of months. Refer to the “Practice Odyssey, Part-2, TRAINING” pearl for effective team member training. When training any new team member you need to take certain things into consideration; they are:
Legal Orientation: The new trainee requires thorough OSHA and HIPAA training so that she understands what a safe working environment is and to safeguard patient privacy.
Orthodontic Orientation: The new trainee requires a thorough understanding of orthodontic treatment and the chronological procedures required to treat a case.
Detailed Position Training Programs: Required for training the Receptionist, Financial, TC, Chairside, Records Tech and Lab Tech. The most effective way to teach is to have a step-by-step, hour-by-hour, day-by-day training program with an effective trainer and a willing, motivated learner.
THE SCHEDULING PROCESS
Your practice should have an effective scheduling system for all patient-related procedures, which allows each team member to have a productive treatment day. Refer to the “Practice Odyssey, Part-4, SCHEDULING” pearl for what is required for an effective daily scheduling system. When designing and using a scheduling system you need to take certain things into consideration; they are.
Staffing: You need to know how many team members you need in every position (as in the table above) to design your schedule.
Your Tx Mechanotherapy: The chronological visits required to provide a specific treatment, including each step in that visit and the DR and DA time required to do each step.
Your Present Daily Production (FS/D): You need at least one year’s statistics to calculate your FS/D and to know what the percentage is for all of your Ph-I and LIM Tx starts is.
Your Future Daily Production (FS/D): If you expect to grow, you will need to design a schedule that is 5% to 15% higher than your present FS/D and grow into it, adding more staffing as you grow.
Your “Daily Schedule” Design: You need to design an effective and efficient daily schedule that fully utilizes your team to efficiently treat your optimum number of patients (at your optimum FS/D).
Your Daily Schedule Maintenance: You need to have procedures in place when your patients mess up your wonderful schedule by being early, late or with a problem. Refer to the pearl “Staying on Schedule” for procedures to accomplish this.
I hope that this pearl and its links to more detailed information helps you to have a more effective team and a practice where the patients love to visit and refer their friends to.
