There’s a difference between repetition and repetitive tasks.
A repetitive task is something that you repeatedly do that benefits you in a minimal way but takes up time and has to be redone.
Making those tasks effective and efficient is one way of freeing up time to do higher value work.
Since we returned back from the initial lockdowns, we’ve utilised the online consultation technologies more and more in the clinic but not as much as we first thought we would.
Obviously in 2020 we thought everybody would be on videos because no one would want to come but actually, we find the opposite, and mostly people would rather meet us face-to-face to see if they like us.
For some people though, an initial video consultation works really, really well and particularly for the patients who travel a long way (and we do get quite a lot of these now) as it limits travel time but increases possibility of discussion.
I use Zoom as the platform for video consultations because it allows me to share screens easily, discuss scans and photographs with patients and share my Dentally platform as I build plans for them whilst recording the call.
I always record the call and ask permission verbally during the call to record it.
I’m really happy that my consultations are honest and full of information and therefore I think if someone had to go back to my consultations which are recorded because they had an issue, they would see how genuine I had tried to be and how I tried to offer all options for patients.
When the call is done, I put some notes in the patient’s case notes (but a lot less than I need to because it’s all on video).
And so, I type a standard set of notes which say I’ve had a video consultation with a patient, and this is where it’s stored, and this is where it can be found.
The video consultation is never shortened but the standard notes to go in are shortened and they just drop, click, click, bang into position.
Deciding which bits of your repetitive tasks to standardise, allowing you to be more human in other aspects of your career is such an important process, it’s worth a little bit of time to consider.
Blog Post Number - 3102
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