Physicians Practice - September 2008 - (Page 55) • Four midsized quarterly goals — You need to know where you stand right now with your patients. Use the first two quarters of the year to design and field surveys and analyze the results. That leaves quarters three and four to make targeted improvements. • 12 small monthly goals — Is your cally or operationally. These are small tasks, doable in one week or less, such as cleaning out the supply closet, devising and assigning job titles and descriptions, or researching new equipment. To keep your plans both organized and top of mind, consider using a whiteboard as a master schedule that holds a quarter’s worth of project plans in grid form. You can use this tool to help break up large projects into smaller steps, as described in the online version of this article at www.PhysiciansPractice.com. Look for “Project Management 101.” Commit to these goals, once set. You don’t need to define every aspect of the year; even planning just one quarter at a time is helpful. Build in a couple of wildcards at the “weekly” level to satisfy your carpe diem needs. But promise yourself — and your staff — that you will stay with the plans you set up. Although occasion- ally it’s unavoidable, nobody likes to be constantly blind-sided with unanticipated work. By sticking to your scheduled goals, you’ll achieve what you want without inciting mutiny. COME TOGETHER patient flow like a skilled gondolier sculling through the canals of Venice? Or more like the herkyjerky boinging of a grasshopper freaking out inside your car? Being shuffled inefficiently through a practice can dampen patient moods. How about your patient billing? Fast, friendly, and understandable? Check on anything that touches your patients: phone manners, waiting room amenities, staff demeanor. Highlight one aspect each month. • 52 mini weekly goals — This is where you “declutter,” either physi- One of the best and worst parts about us human beings is our individuality. Energy levels from one person to the next range from snail-like to near light speed, as do tolerances for change. Possibly no one loves change more than Eckerling, and no one loves it less than Chatham. Chatham’s tenure at this medical office (which predates Eckerling’s purchase of the practice a decade ago) and her life-long town residency make her a sort of practice “mom,” and indeed Eckerling tends to bounce his ideas off her. But this bouncing usually lands with a dull thud, because Chatham, with her big-picture view of the town and the idiosyncrasies of its residents, is a self-professed naysayer. WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM SEPTEMBER 2008 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | 55 http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://vaxserve.com http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.