Welcome to the New Year! January can feel like a blur as we reflect on our past and try to reconfigure our lives to align with our goals. We’re throwing out the old and welcoming new processes, good habits, and resolutions.
As you’re considering where you would like to be a year from now, take a moment to set goals for your O&P clinic. What can you do today to position your clinic for success in 2020 and beyond? Even if they're small goals, the act of making a resolution can help refocus your efforts and steer your clinic in the right direction. Read on for three goals to help you lead your O&P clinic into a successful year.
1. Leave Inefficiencies Behind
Getting more done with finite work hours means leaving inefficiencies in 2019. One tactic for identifying and improving inefficiencies is to chart patient flow, which is the patient’s journey at each phase of their appointment. Step into your patients’ shoes and go through each interaction with your clinic and personnel yourself. Observe how other patients travel through the system and take notes on where bottle necks emerge, or recruit volunteers and collect feedback from their experiences. Once you know where the problems are, you can dig deeper into the underlying cause. Is the reception area inundated with too many calls? Do patient’s get lost trying to find the exit? Do problems arise from back office tasks that could be automated? Making small improvements throughout the year will help your clinic operate like a well-oiled machine.
2. Boost Patient Engagement
Patient engagement has become a buzzword that is often conflated to mean interacting with patients through digital channels, like patient portals and social media. But at its core, patient engagement means promoting positive patient behavior through interventions. The benefits of encouraging patients to be more active in their healthcare is enormous, such as improved health outcomes, reduced costs, and higher satisfaction of care. Improving patient engagement entails understanding your unique patient community and identifying tools to help them succeed. Examples include coordinating self-management programs for diabetics or providing better access to a patient's health records. Small tweaks in service can also impact patient engagement, like taking the time to listen to patients and encouraging them to take personal ownership of their health.
3. Manage your Online Reputation
A survey by Doctors.com discovered that 63% of respondents will select a provider based on whether they have a strong online presence. What appears when a potential patient searches your clinic is their first impression, so having a complete digital presence is important. The same study found that even patient referrals research clinics online, with 81% reading online reviews. Take a moment to audit your online presence to see whether you’re communicating your clinic in the best light. Here are some quick tips to help you get started:
Give your website some love: It’s 2020, everyone has a website (and if you don’t, you need to set one up). Take a moment to review your website by looking for broken links, rereading your web page content, and making sure the forms are up-to-date. If you combed through your website, and it still looks outdated, it may be time for a complete overhaul. Consider website design sites, like Squarespace or Wix, to create simple and effective websites from templates. Websites are often a patient or referral’s first touch point with their O&P provider, so give your website some love to ensure those first impressions count!
Consider Social Media: Young and old, everyone is on social media nowadays, but this doesn’t necessarily mean your clinic must be on social media. If your clinic’s social media channel will not be updated regularly, than it’s best to not have a social media presence at all. For those who can maintain a consistent presence, there are many benefits to joining social media such as improved patient communication, satisfaction, and engagement. Furthermore, a study by Demi & Cooper Advertising and DC Interactive Group discovered that 41% of respondents indicated social media would affect their choice of a specific doctor, hospital, or medical facility. If you want to attract and engage more patients, consider adding social into your marketing strategy.
If you have overlooked managing your clinic’s online presence, make 2020 the year to go digital.
This new year holds multiple opportunities to revamp your O&P clinic’s operations. Committing to a resolution, such as improving efficiency, patient engagement, or your digital presence, is a great way to review your operation’s pain points, and refocus your efforts.
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