In all industries, but specifically health service ones like dentistry, consistency is the number one key to client retention and overall success. No matter what day of the week it is, what time of year, or who’s in the office at a given time, your clients should receive the same level of high quality care and service every time they visit. As a boss, it is your job to communicate and exemplify the standard you expect within your practice.

Regular, consistent communication

It may be cliche, but communication is truly the key to everything. Within a dental space, clear communication should be present within all levels; between you and your staff, between the staff members themselves, and, very importantly, between the staff and clients.

When it comes to communication between you and your team, this should be done through regular meetings, but also on a daily basis so you are always in the loop on what is going on, whether you’re in the office or not. The traditional way to do this is via weekly reports – your staff or office manager can take notes of things that they notice are and aren’t working in the day-by-day operations and present it to you formally on a weekly basis. These weekly reports should serve as the backbone of your regularly-scheduled staff meetings where as a team you should all openly communicate how things are running and what improvements or changes can be made.

An exciting, new way to encourage and streamline communication between you and your team is with DenTyme, our revolutionary digital app for dental professionals. One of many of the app’s impressive features is the anonymous questionnaire feature. Staff members can fill out the questionnaire within the app at the end of each work day. You, as a boss, can then use the data and insight gathered from the questionnaires to implement new systems and improve your practice.

Quality assurance

When it comes to maximizing your profits, quality is of utmost importance. Your patients are putting their well-being and health into you and your staff’s hands and you should be offering a level of care that will have them coming back and, most importantly, referring you to their peers.

This is another area where DenTyme can be an asset – the procedural log within the app can be used by your staff to track the length of time of each procedure. This is a useful tool because if a staff member is taking a longer or shorter time to do a procedure than what is officially recommended in your guidelines or by your dental association, this is a sign that the patient is not receiving quality care or not receiving optimal services.

The College of Dental Hygienists of Ontario has a great resource here that details different aspects of quality assurance and also includes worksheets and checklists that they use to track staff performance and procedures of their members.

For more insight on bettering your practice, check out DenTyme - our virtual chairside assistant developed by dental  professionals for dental professionals.

Resources:

https://www.cdho.org/docs/default-source/pdfs/quality-assurance/qaprogram_guidelines.pdf