05 Sep How to Increase Staff Productivity in Your Pediatric Practice

As the leader of a pediatric practice, you know that being successful involves more than providing excellent medical care. Of course, patient care is your top priority, but managing day-to-day operations takes knowledge, organization, and the right people.

How do you make the best use of your team’s skills and talents? How can you make sure everyone in your pediatric office is being productive and efficient without crushing morale? These are important points to consider, especially if you want to have a profitable practice.

Here are some suggestions for boosting staff productivity.

Get to Know Your Team and Show Them You Care

Perhaps your front desk receptionist is a single mom with two children, while your phlebotomist is helping to take care of her sick father. Maybe your medical assistant aspires to go to nursing school. These scenarios might not directly impact your pediatric practice, but they certainly affect your employees’ mindsets when they are at work.

Understanding who your team members are outside of work will help you manage them appropriately.

For example, the single mom may need to leave early occasionally if one of her children has a performance at school, so you can let her know you will work with her to accommodate her family’s schedule. The medical assistant is looking for growth opportunities, so you could ask one of your nurses to mentor her as she prepares to become an RN.

In addition, when you know your employees and their personalities, you can delegate tasks appropriately. Your team members will feel empowered to perform well if you treat them well and allow them to play to their strengths, not their weaknesses.

Have Working Equipment

How would you feel if your one assignment for the day was to print 500 letters, but you didn’t have a working printer? Frustrated, right?

The same is true for your staff when they are trying to do their jobs. Make sure office equipment like computers, printers, and scanners are up to date and working well.

Keep tabs on your medical supplies, too — that they’re in stock and operating efficiently. If someone lets you know that a piece of equipment is malfunctioning, take it seriously. Look into the problem and have it fixed.

Implement Effective Systems

Much like an office’s physical equipment, a pediatrician’s staff members are more productive if systems and software are effective. Consider implementing a pediatric-specific electronic health record (EHR) that complements your workflows and helps you track vaccines.

Another aspect of your pediatric practice that deserves a streamlined system – is billing. Help your employees conquer unique pediatric billing challenges like combined well and sick charges during the same visit and various state Medicaid requirements.

Train Your Staff (but only when necessary)

Not knowing how to do your job stinks. Help reduce anxiety and frustration among your team by providing training when they need it. As you know, healthcare research never stops, so it’s important that your staff is up to date on the most current information. You might offer to send employees to workshops on practice-specific topics that impact nursing or coding.

In addition, there may be opportunities to bring experts into your setting for more general education. A key topic for pediatric practices is often communication, and all staff members can usually benefit from training on it. For example, it will benefit your practice and boost productivity if employees are able to choose the best method of communication for a particular issue, whether that’s email, electronic chat, face-to-face meeting, or a phone call.

One final note on education: Sitting through hours of training that is not necessary is equally frustrating for employees. Don’t force your team to go to a workshop if they’ve already attended something similar. You wouldn’t want to pay for training that is not useful or needed, anyway.

Be a Good Role Model

The culture at your pediatric practice starts with the leadership. Having a culture means determining your practice’s values and living them out every day.

It is absolutely crucial that you set an excellent example. Your team is watching, and they’re also looking at the other leaders in the office, such as managers and administrators.

If the leadership slacks, so will the employees. But if the team members see a hard-working leader with a positive attitude, they will emulate that. And having a positive work environment will certainly go a long way toward boosting morale.

Learning More

For more information on this topic, download the eBook “Nine Simple Ways to Increase Staff Productivity.”