Improving communication with your patients and Staff is incredibly important to the process of making your medical practice as efficient as possible.
It’s also crucial to the process of increasing the quality of care. It your practice and staff are capable of delivering.
When your staff understands exactly what they’re supposed to do. And you equip them to help you in the most efficient manner possible. Then you open the door to providing truly exceptional patient care.
Not only does your staff need to communicate with you and receive instructions from you effectively. But they also need to communicate with each other well enough to get through the day without suffering from communication breakdowns.
Everyone also needs to communicate effectively with patients in the same manner.
So in this blog post, you’re going to learn a few tips and techniques that can help you to achieve this in your own practice.
Let’s dive into it.
1. Always Speak In A Straightforward Manner
Some people shy away from conflict.
They may struggle with being straightforward because it feels too ‘pointed.’
But it’s really important to not only embrace straightforward communication yourself but to also encourage it amongst your team.
When people ‘beat about the bush,’ in a medical setting. Valuable information can fall through the cracks because it isn’t always clear exactly what’s being said.
Therefore, achieving straightforward communication should be a primary priority amongst your team. And it should also be a staple of your own leadership communication style.
2. Always Remain Respectful
Once again, this is a communication tactic that you should use in leading by example. But it should also be cultivated among the members of your team and encouraged whenever anyone communicates with a patient.
Speaking in a straightforward manner, and getting right to the point, doesn’t mean that you need to leave respect at the door.
Making sure that you pointedly communicate the crucial details of patient care doesn’t mean that you have to do so in a disrespectful manner.
Communication is going to be accomplished much more effectively when everyone feels respected in the environment.
Thus, maintaining respectful communication is really a staple part of making a medical practice work as well as possible.
3. Over-Communicate
As a physician, you might know enough about your patients that many aspects of patient care seem obvious to you.
You may not necessarily even need your staff to over-communicate with you.
In fact, experiencing staff members overcommunicating with you may sometimes even feel frustrating—because it may feel like a waste of your valuable time.
However, even if this keeps one small detail from falling through the cracks, it could be worth it.
Thus, you should encourage a bit of over-communication. Not only with the staff members who deal directly with you. But also with the members of your staff who are going to communicate with each other and with patients about crucial patient care details.
In other words, if everyone over-communicates just a little bit. You’ll probably end up communicating more valuable information with each other—and thus, providing a better level of patient care.
4. Take Care Of Yourself
Taking care of yourself will also help you to become a better communicator overall.
Take adequate time off of work, foster positive relationships outside of the workplace, and make sure that you have a stable place to live. Where your family can exist together and thrive comfortably.
(If you need some help with the mortgage part of this equation, LeverageRX can help with physicians’ mortgage loan information.)
The truth is simple. Doctors who:
- Taking care of themselves is more likely to be happy and productive, which will lead to better patient care.
- Are healthy and well-rested and are less likely to make mistakes, which can protect their patients and their practice.
- Taking care of themselves is more likely to be motivated and engaged in their work, which can lead to a successful practice.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, it’s really all about the Patients and Staff.
It’s all about providing top-level care and making sure that you prioritize the patient’s needs before everything else.
Sometimes, this means that you need to step up your communication style to really eliminate problematic errors—so that all of the information that needs to be communicated can be assured of being communicated.
And of course, this may also require a bit of training on the part of your team.
So get out there and make it happen.
You’ve got this, and it’s actually really important.