Follow These Four Steps to Stay Out of the Rut
We Hear It All the Time
“Because we’ve always done it that way.” We hear it all the time. In business, at home, and in medicine. It’s a lousy answer. In fact, it should be a warning sign that there may be something seriously wrong. Even if the process is good, it is disturbing when people do not know why they are doing something.
Burnout is rampant. Medicine is being assailed from every direction. It can be easy to do something because you are accustomed to doing it that way. It certainly does not make that a smart or efficient way to complete a task. The old way may be the best way, or it may be a comfortable disaster. Likewise, a newer method may be tremendously better or derail your entire system.
In medicine, it is vital to understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. Providing great medical care is central to the business of medicine. Stay abreast of the latest in your field and anything that affect your specialty and clinical practice. Never assume, however, that a study was well performed or that data are accurate merely because it was published.
Many of us cling to approaches learned during training. Others latch on to the latest fad. Neither is optimal. It is vital to understand the medical disorders your patients have and how these can be treated, including new and old treatments, potential complications of treatment and disease progression, as well interactions with other diseases. Be constantly on the lookout for treatments that might be superior or issues that do not fit a typical pattern. Horses may be more common, but zebras do sometimes escape from the zoo. Customize your treatment for each patient.
Accelerate the Rate of Change
The rate of change in medicine and in business is not incremental; it is increasing exponentially. Product life cycles have shortened, new medications and remedies appear monthly, and new medical devices are released with increasing regularity. This often eliminates products and services that no longer deliver value to the marketplace, but many people will still cling to the older methods.
Embrace Change
Embrace change after careful thought and analysis. Improvements in technology and processes can usher in improved productivity. Mediocre systems or poor implementation can create a quagmire.
Monitor your practice and watch for areas in need of improvement. Do not feel constrained by the way you have managed things in the past or by the way others are addressing them. Find what works well in your practice and use it. Discard processes and tools that proves less successful. Do not be trapped by familiarity.
Where Do You Start?
Encourage your staff to challenge you and one another.
Practice staff at all levels must be empowered to monitor the systems and be constantly seeking enhancements Avoid a “do as you’re told” mentality. Remember everyone in the practice needs to work as a team toward a common goal.
As the practice leader, demand feedback and take it well. It is not good enough to say you have an open mind; you must also pull the good ideas from your team. In his book, Good Profit, Charles Koch lets us know that a great deal of his success comes from this very expectation, which he backs monetarily by paying front-line workers large bonuses for coming up with new innovative ideas within his businesses.
Look outside your circle.
Engage a consultant or another provider from outside your organization to look at your practice objectively. A fresh set of eyes with new ideas and observations can give your practice the boost it needs. Someone with the advantage of working within multiple companies and different industries usually can provide new options and insights. As with your team, demand straightforward, honest feedback from whomever you select. A canned report that tells you what you want to hear is all but worthless.
Ask “why?”
Remember when you were 4 years old and channel your inner child to ask “why?” constantly. Don’t let things just slide by during the day. Ask yourself, “why are we doing it this way? Is there a better way to accomplish our desired outcome?”
The same goes on the flip side. If you are looking to make a change, add a technology, change a service, or in a new direction, stop and ask yourself, “what problem are we solving with this change?” This simple question can prevent jumping to conclusions too quickly without assessing the real root of an issue, problem, or need.
Consider New Technology
Today, there are more options than in the past to support a well-run practice. From new treatments to business technologies, these tools give us new ways of solving issues and driving results better than ever before.
Here again, it may be beneficial to bring in outside talent whose sole purpose is to review these technologies and help you identify how new or previously existing technologies may address longstanding issues.
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Because We've Always Done It This Way Doesn't Work! | SBGM