In our offices, we have a single critical number displayed and dynamically updated on LCD screens at all times. I picked up this idea after attending one of Verne Harnish’s sessions. Our critical number is the total cumulative collections across all clients. It’s important because our business is dependent on it. Every organization has a critical number whether it knows it or not or whether it monitors it or not. And yes, medical practices do too.
But the point isn’t about just one number. There are a set of numbers that need to be on your practice dashboard – that’ll tell you the whole story. Not only that, there need to be productivity numbers that visually indicate what’s happening at any given point of time. If you have special projects going on, there needs to visual demonstration of the progress of these projects.
I can’t stress enough the importance of visual indicators. It serves the following purposes:
- helps you monitor what’s going on at a quick glance
- helps you take corrective action as close to the time of occurrence of the problem as possible
- helps everyone on the team get on the same page without room for ambiguity
What might be those indicators that are relevant to the health of your practice? A thermometer would tell you in a minute if your patient has fever – it tells it visually and numerically and that helps. If your practice has the flu, how would you know?