6 Steps to Great Office Communication

How many times have you faced an office problem and thought of the famous line from Cool Hand Luke: "What we have here is -- failure to communicate." Office communication affects virtually every aspect of your practice: the quality of your service … the productivity of your people … patient satisfaction … the turnaround time of critical tasks … the efficiency of your workflow process … the list goes on and on. And just like any other vital skill, effective office communication requires an investment in technology, standards and managerial oversight.

As SpectraSoft developed its new Version 9 of AppointmentsPRO medical appointment scheduling software, we identified several key components of effective office commuinication based on years of experience working with thousands of offices, practices and hospitals. Then we built these communication tools right into the new AppointmentsPRO. This powerful new set of tools can make everyone in your office more productive.

Even if you're not using AppointmentsPRO 9 (and you should!), you may want to consider how you can integrate these six ingredients of good communication into your office operation.

Step #1: Establish Priority

In today's fast-moving healthcare environment, everyone in your office is multi-tasking. But do they know which tasks are most important? Is it the one you screamed out the loudest? Or the one that requires the least effort to complete?

When you assign a task, you may often forget to communicate its importance. If a referring physician calls you and insists that a progress note be faxed right away, don't simply tell your aide to send the note and assume it will be done right away. After all, there may already be many other assignments on that person's desk that she would normally complete before sending the note.

Establishing priority is often just as important a part of your communication as the task itself. That's why the AppointmentsPRO task function includes a priority feature – so that if you hand off three items to a staff member, you can also let him know which of the three tasks should be completed first.

Step #2: Keep It Front and Center

Handwritten sticky notes and memos can easily be lost or buried on the typical employee desktop. Meanwhile, the person that wrote the note can just as easily forget writing it or simply assume it was addressed without confirmation. One solution is to insist that all official communication be done electronically, such as via email, so that both sender and receiver have a record of the communication.

AppointmentsPRO takes this approach a step further. A bright red alert notifies a user any time a task or notification is waiting for them. At the same time, the sender also has a record of the task on his or her screen. That way, important items of communication never get lost, misplaced or forgotten – by the sender or by the recipient.

Step #3: Get Everyone on the Same System

In today's high tech office, it's not uncomon that Sally and Joe will commuinicate via email, George and Bob will exchange sticky notes, and Tom and Alice will Instant-Message each other.

With so many different forms of communication, it's inevitable that standards won't be met and important items will fall through the cracks. That's why you should insist that all official communication be sent through the same method.

Better yet, when everyone in your office uses AppointmentsPRO for official business, every important piece of communication is live on the system until it has been addressed or completed – so everyone in your office lives by the same accountability, and supervisors can effectively verify that mission-critical tasks are being assigned and completed promptly.

Ingredient #4: Track It

This has probably happened to you: you remember that a task needs to be done, such as calling a patient after test results indicate the need for a follow-up appointment. You ask a colleague to make the call. Then you never think about it again. Unfortunately, neither does the person you asked to make the call. Not only does the call not get made, but because you assume it did, the problem has been compounded and you come out looking unprofessional.

It is critical that you have a record of every task you delegate in a format that allows you to follow up and confirm that it has been done. This is especially true in a high-pressure field like healthcare, where neglecting even the seemingly smallest task can have major ramifications.

When you assign a task to a staff member using AppointmentsPRO, that task stays on both your queue and your collegue's queue until it is completed. So you not only know when it's done, you know that it's done.

Step #5: Automate It

Now that we're well into the 21^st century, does it really make sense that someone has to stop what they're doing, get up and walk down the hall to notify the practitioner every time a patient arrives? In a smooth-running office, common notifications are automated.

AppointmentsPRO instantly alerts each user when one of their patients arrives, is marked as a no-show, cancels or is rescheduled. Each user can program what notifications they receive.

Step #6: Be Discrete

How many times have you been the customer at an establishment and had to sit by uncomfortably as the staff bickered and argued over the proper way to do things? That's not they type of communication that builds business. Make sure everyone in your office understands the need to maintain the highest level of professionalism at all times.

When necessary, communication can take place via IM or email – never out loud within earshot of the patient. With AppointmentsPRO, one coworker can alert another to a problem without saying a word, by using the Task Manager. So your office runs smoothly and silently.

We hope these 6 steps will help you achieve better office communication.  Let us know how you're doing by emailing us at newsletter@ssoft.com.