What’s YOUR definition of success?

 

Every time we talk to a potential new client we ask them ‘What are your top 2 challenges in the hygiene department?’.  And then next we ask them ‘What are your initial and long-range goals for your hygiene department as a result of working with us?’.  The cool thing is they’re all different.

Yes, there are some recurring themes but some doctors will say ‘A 20% increase in hygiene production’ or ‘Everyone on the same page and less stressful days’.

And here’s the thing, what matters is YOUR definition of success as a team.

When we do private workshops and coaching with dental teams, we often ask the team to give us specific definitions of success for what they’re trying to implement.

As you can see here, we were working on putting into place a proactive, progressive perio protocol. This is an exercise I highly recommend you do whenever you’re trying to implement something new.Ask your team this question. ‘We will know we’ve successfully implemented _________ when_________’. And then have everyone share his or her measure of success.

Not everyone starts at the same place.  So for you it may be fully incorporating high-level bacterial and genetic testing, use of lasers and probiotics.  For other teams it may be committing to diagnosing perio at it’s earliest stages and then working toward the next step in their perio program slowly but surely.

The key is to know where you are starting, know where you want to go and how you’ll know when you’ve arrived.

This involves several steps:

  • Analysis of the current state of your department (or even a specific service you want to increase)
  • First level goal for improvement- where you want to be in 3 months
  • What will success look like-sometimes it’s tangible like an increase in number of adult fluorides and sometimes it’s not like decrease in stress or more consistency in treatment planning

Whatever it is you’re working toward, be sure to define what success will look like for you.  And then celebrate when you get there!!

Stay Inspired,

Rachel

Good things come in small packages!

 

Dr. Debbie Gadille and her fabulous team have proven that bigger isn’t always better.   It has been such a pleasure to work with this team. This is another ‘small town success’ story.

So often, we hear clients say, “well, that just won’t work in our small town…” or, “in this part of the country, our patients will never go for that…” or “in this economy, we can’t grow our perio program…”

With Dr. Deb’s unflappable commitment to a high standard of care, she and her team have blown open the doors of what’s possible in any practice!

The village of Westphalia Michigan has a population of 876 people.  Dr. Gadille’s office is less than 800 square feet.

However, they’ve managed grow their perio program by leaps and bounds.

In just under 4 months, this team was able to:

  • Exceed their 1st level production and treatment goals
  • Increase their hourly production to nearly $200/hour!
  • Refine their perio enrollment strategy making it surprisingly easy for patients to say, “Yes”

…And they did all this with a hygiene schedule that was already filled to capacity, in a small town, in this economy!

The turning point for this team occurred when we did an intensive full day hands-on workshop.  We took this team’s utilization of radiographic interpretation to the next level. They now STUDY the bitewings with laser-focus, detecting EARLY signs of crestal bone loss and detecting microscopic deposits of burnished sheet calculus – making it easier for them to diagnose perio EARLY.

The team refined their calibration to perio probing and charting.  We finished the day with a perio scaling interactive workshop using patients in their recare pool.

I am so proud of Dr. Debbie Gadille and her ENTIRE team! You inspire me!!