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Making Your Office More Productive and Efficient JUST USING YOUR VOICE!

Healthy Heart for Healthcare Practice

Posted by Julie - on Wed, Feb 12, 2014

Dragon profits your business!

You fix people.   

You are a lifesaver.

You want to help others.

You give advice to patients on how to keep their heart healthy.   However, try as you may, often times your efforts are in vain.  You painstakingly go over the dangers of smoking, the benefits of exercise, the importance of a healthy diet, and maintaining a healthy weight.  You even encourage your patients to get regular health screenings.   But month after month some of these same people show up in your office in worse shape than ever before.   They give you excuses like, "it's hard", "I don't have time", "I don't have money to buy good food", etc.  You wonder… Why won't they help themselves?  It's a bit of a quandary.   There are no easy fixes, magic pills, or ways to get something for nothing. 

Just as you care for the health and welfare of your patient’s heart, you should also care about the health and welfare of the “heart of your business”.    Do you have your finger on the pulse of your business practices?

Being a doctor is about practicing medicine, but if you do not practice good business, things may be harder than they need to be.    

Here are a few health tips for your business and warning signs you might not be meeting the mark.

DO NOT SMOKE

We tell patients that smoking is not good, because it does nothing good for your body – it actually harms it.    

Take a look at things that may be harming your business.

EMR System – Should be easy to use and produce professional patient records.  This equates to higher rate of billing and quality patient care.

WARNING SIGNS:  No EMR, poor quality patient notes, delayed billing, low rate of billing.   

Workflow Tools - Updated computers, echocardiogram systems, speech recognition software and other technologies to create a streamlined workflow. 

WARNING SIGNS:  Frustration with computer slowness, outdated equipment or paying transcriptionists.

EXERCISE

Exercise is important - it alleviates stress.   Just like physical activity is exercise to the body, cognitive activity is exercise to the business.   To help you get started get a personal coach… go to a specialist.

Software Training – Do not waste time trying to figure out how to use software when there are specialists who can show you tips and tricks or give you the answers you need to best utilize it for your workflow.  

WARNING SIGNS:  You don’t know keyboard shortcuts, or the most efficient functionality in Dragon or your EMR.  You are doing processes in 5 steps that could be done in 2 steps.

New Product Demos – Taking the time to watch a product demonstration can be difficult, but it is worse to let great technology pass you by.    The purpose of new product implementation is to make processes simpler and save time. 

WARNING SIGNS:  Sales reps have stopped calling, your peers talk about technology you have never heard of OR are not taking advantage of.

HEALTHY DIET

The heart is happy when it is pumping nutrients from fruits and vegetables rather than from a greasy burger or a doughnut.   Your patients depend on you providing sustenance that is healthy and good.   

Communication – Provide quality patient notes, make things easy for the patient and update patients on latest technology and prescriptions available.   

WARNING SIGNS:  Patients tell you they do not understand your notes, patients are not aware of the valuable information you have. 

MAINTAIN A HEALTHY WEIGHT

Being at your BMI gives you energy and confidence.   Measure your weight and make adjustments.  How healthy is your business?

Do you know what your costs are?  Are you getting a return on your investment?  Are you incurring costs for things you do not even know about?  Ask yourself these questions and get the answers!

WARNING SIGNS:  You do not know the answers to these questions. 

GET REGULAR HEALTH SCREENINGS

Health screenings are preventive medicine.

Operations - Make a list of the things that are working and start looking for solutions to solve the things that do not work.  This will help your office be proactive and prevent issues down the road.    

WARNING SIGNS:  You are always in a reactive mode.

 
Your work reflects who you are - so take care of the heart of your business.

Tags: Dragon Speech Recognition Software, speech recognition solutions, Improve Workflow, Best practices, healthy business, DMPE, Dragon Medical