Productivity in any professional practice, whether medical, legal, or dental, is essential for ensuring profitability and quality service to clients or patients. In daily operations, we face multiple challenges that can drain our productivity, from managing time with patients to necessary documentation and regulatory compliance. These “productivity thieves” can be addressed with effective strategies.
In a professional practice, productivity is inextricably linked to the profitability of the business and the level of satisfaction of clients or patients. Having a productive team is a good start, but it is not enough to solve all productivity-related issues.
Productivity largely depends on the interaction between different components of the practice: the dynamics of interpersonal and professional relationships, internal organization, task execution, and the availability of human, technological, financial, and informational resources, among others.
Improving productivity in your practice requires a methodical approach and specialized tools, such as practice management systems (PMS), that facilitate coordination and ensure that quality, timeliness, and profitability are accessible to all, especially to the practice leaders.
As practices grow, management becomes more complex. There are more interacting elements, more patients or clients to attend to, more staff working, and more resources involved. In this new environment, the work cannot be done the same way as when the practice was small. This makes productivity even more important. The leaders’ time is scarcer, and their distance from daily operations increases. However, it is all too common for staff to need to consult leaders more frequently because “that’s what we used to do.”
What do we need to solve this potentially problematic, though all-too-common, situation?
We must start with the strategic aspects around which all members of the practice should be aligned: vision, mission, and strategic objectives. Although some may think these are just words for a website, these fundamental elements have phenomenal power to align the members of a team. Staff need to know how they can contribute to advancing the practice and where they should drive it.
With the team aligned toward a long-term vision, within the framework defined by the mission, and with clear strategic objectives in hand, we must work on analyzing, improving, and documenting the practice’s processes. These are the “how” things are done. When you analyze processes, you identify and improve aspects such as task duplication, unnecessary steps, critical omissions, and the transfer of responsibility throughout the process. Having documented processes will ensure that the organization works optimally and uniformly, preventing your staff from consulting you at every step, as everything or nearly everything will be answered in the process manual.
Next, it is crucial to organize your team and resources around personalized processes that reflect the unique needs of your practice. This not only simplifies interactions but also ensures clear accountability at every stage of the process, reducing errors and improving efficiency.
Finally, equip your team and leaders with the necessary information to manage processes, identify the levers they need to pull to overcome barriers, and eliminate any remaining obstacles to productivity in the organization. This information should include:
- Clear goals and objectives for each team member. When everyone knows what is expected of them, their performance improves exponentially.
- Accessible and understandable process manuals that serve as work guides.
- Performance information for each member so everyone can see how they are meeting their goals and objectives.
- A set of key data and indicators to guide management. This will help leaders identify the levers they need to pull to keep productivity at its peak.
An aligned team that knows how to carry out the core activities of the practice, properly organized for efficiency and productivity, and with key information and other resources at hand, will have something very close to superpowers.