I run three predominantly NHS practices which account for 45 staff members including 13 dentists. Overall we service the needs of 23,000 patients in Salford. The need to operate at maximum efficiency is fundamental to the success of each practice and the group as a whole.
As the murmurings around the launch of V11 grew louder last year, I was keen to be involved in ‘road testing’ the software and delighted when the opportunity to provide feedback arose. I have Exact installed in all three of my practices and we upgraded to V11 software in all of them, an experience which I have found very positive.
The area where I find Exact to be of particular value is the way in which it facilitates the monitoring of business performance. In the UK we are traditionally very poor at this aspect of running a practice and the latest developments in Exact V11 are a real step forward in this respect.
Exact V11 shows an insightful understanding of how the management of business processes impacts on productivity and, as far as I’m concerned, the more I can automate the administrative processes in my practice the better. My view is that the more efficient my staff can be, the better our patient care will be. So we now operate a fully automated recall system from each practice, meaning patients receive automatic recalls including text, email and letter, can book online and get an email or text confirmation of the appointment, all without the involvement of any staff member; it is an amazing and very efficient process. This has replaced the situation we had previously, in which the reception team were spending valuable time organising and fulfilling recall mailings. The combination of online appointment booking and Easypost has been a real innovation for us, one that has really impacted positively on both the efficiency, business performance
and the morale of the front-desk team.
Employing these automatic processes is dependent on collating an accurate database and our target is to get 70 per cent of all patients to provide a valid email address. Once we have fully built this database I know that online booking, as an integrated part of the recall process, will come into its own. People are quite happy to supply their email address if the reasons for wanting it are properly explained; we haven’t encountered much opposition from patients in this regard.
I don’t believe this way of working is removing the personal touch as some might argue. All our patient correspondence is personalised and removing the administrative burden of a manual process is allowing us to spend more time with patients, which in my opinion is a more appropriate application of the personal element of the practice.
Workflow Manager has also made a big improvement to the management of future appointment booking at reception. This
module gives a clear indication of the dentist’s recommended
appointment interval and has removed the possibility of any embarrassment on the part of the receptionist if they are unsure about when the next appointment should be booked.
Utilisation Manager is personally my favourite innovation in Exact V11. It is allowing me to really drill down into the database but in a much more efficient way than previously. Historically we used to sit and wait for the number
crunching to be completed, leaving little time to reflect on what the data was actually telling us. My managers and I now have the reports emailed to us at night and spend our time reflecting and managing rather than completing
huge amounts of administration. This has enabled me to set realistic goals for each practice.
The scheduler for reports is an innovation that shows real insight and understanding. This function allows me to automatically schedule reports on all the key business functions of each practice, enabling me to reflect on the state of each in real time. This helps me to foresee when issues might be
likely to arise, rather than waiting for a problem to occur and then trying to deal with the aftermath. The reports are issued on a daily, weekly and monthly basis depending on the information required. For example a few weeks ago we ran a credit analysis report which gave us the details of every patient who had a credit balance. All our patients pay at the start of their course of treatment rather than at the end, to ensure their commitment, but the downside of this is that if, for any reason, the treatment doesn’t go ahead, the account is often left in credit. The data we extracted
from this report gave us a clear action to contact every patient and encourage them to start their course of treatment, which I’m pleased to say the vast majority did. So, this single piece of information enabled us to turn these credit balances into actual treatment, with the resultant improvement in chairtime usage.
Working predominately within the NHS where budgets are tight, the need to work efficiently is paramount. Using the tools within Exact V11 I am now managing my business even more effectively and it has helped me focus individual skills where they are needed and where they will be most beneficial to patient outcomes. For me, the technological advances are vital because when employed appropriately they will make a huge difference to the operational efficiency of an NHS practice. I am now more of a businessman than a clinician, although I still take on some of the more complex cases that arise. I have an operations manager who deals with most of the day-to-day matters across the group, leaving me free to take a strategic view of the future. Each of my practices is treated as a profit centre and at our financial month end I know exactly where each practice stands in relation to each other and its contribution to the business as a whole. Having this detailed information is enabling me to look forward and predict where each practice is heading, rather than being retrospective and looking at things that have already happened. This is a very empowering position to be in.