After reading last Thursday’s blog How do you measure the productivity of all areas in an office? by one of my fellow consultants at Silkin Management Group, Bill Hickey, I thought I would carry on the theme he started and add my own insight to this subject.

I can’t emphasize enough how important statistical monitoring is to the management of a practice. As clearly elucidated in yesterday’s blog, without proper metrics, you can’t really see what is going on throughout the business side of a practice.

The first question you might ask yourself is how one determines what the correct monitoring statistic is for an area or job position. The answer to that is something more basic, and that is determining what the actual product is that should be produced by that position or area.

In sales this is usually easy to see. For example, the product of a car salesman is a sold car and his statistic would simply be the number of cars sold.

That one is easy. But what about a receptionist in a health care office? What’s her product? And what statistic measures that?

Here are some ideas you can use for this position in terms of product and statistic for a receptionist:

• Product: A patient who arrives at the agreed upon time
• Statistic: Percent of patients kept to schedule
• Product: Sufficiently full appointment book to keep the office at or above its needed production target.
• Statistic: Percent of the appointment book filled

I hope this example gives you an idea on how this basic management tool works. If you want to properly manage your practice, you must be able to easily see the productivity in any area or job position and not operate on “feel” or “how it seems”.

Please note: this does not mean that you take the important human element out of your practice. I’ve heard people say that watching statistics takes the “humanity” out of a practice. These are not mutually exclusive activities! The “human element” is more important than anything else as it is people, working together as a team in a mutually created enjoyable work place that makes a practice a fun, pleasant and productive place to work. But, at the same time, you must also be able to logically see how the productivity of each area and job position of a practice is doing or you won’t be able to manage the practice as a whole and take care of your staff.

Letting a staff member flounder around, not really knowing how they are doing, is not a fair way to treat any staff member. Neither is letting a poorly producing staff member attack in subtle or not so subtle ways a good producing staff member. Having a proper statistical monitoring system in place takes helps your staff know how they are doing and protects the good producers. That makes a happy and productive place to work.

At Silkin Management Group, we have researched and worked out nearly every product and statistic in a health care practice and, where we haven’t, we know exactly how to figure them out. If you are interested in more information about how to do this, contact us at info@silkinmanagementgroup.com or visit our website at silkinmanagementgroup.com. View our other blog at practicemanagementblog.com

Eric Korb
Technical Director