Efficient management of healthcare facilities has always been a high priority for all healthcare professionals, and rightly so. The recent explosion of telehealth visits, however, has made it a more important aspect of healthcare than ever before.

The role of the practice manager, which has always required a high degree of operational knowledge and experience, is changing. Managers are now required to be familiar with all aspects of clinical care as well as practice management and medical billing. This knowledge requirement is generally limited to some formal education on the basics of their practice’s specialty. In order to gain more credibility, however, managers need a broader knowledge of the healthcare system overall. Here are key tips every manager should follow, thrive in healthcare.

Shadow physicians

All team members who play any role in providing direct patient care play are an important cog in the healthcare machine, and managers can gain a wealth of knowledge by simply shadowing them and observing how they go about their daily tasks. Providers, MA’s, and RN’s all play different roles and can offer unique perspectives on the operation as a whole.

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Shadowing MAs and RN’s will reveal how their work impacts the practice, and how their work affects the efficiency of your providers. Shadowing providers will provide a look at the many challenges providers face on a daily basis, and perhaps some ideas on what managers can do to ease some of those burdens.

Understanding patient experience

Rather than simply handing out and collecting the results from a patient survey, which may not be accurate, managers can learn a lot more by simply tagging along to the experience of a few patients a month. This starts when the appointment is booked and continues on into the patient entering the building, sitting in the waiting room, the communication that takes place between team members for assessing the patient’s condition, and then any follow-up that occurs post-visit.

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By shadowing both practice staff and patients as they go about the routine of a patient visit, managers can get a thorough understanding of how their practice functions, and of how the actual clinical operations are performed. This deeper insight will reveal a great deal about the key driving factors behind revenue generation, staff satisfaction, and ultimately patient outcomes. Having gained all of this knowledge, managers will be in a much better position to make suggestions that might improve the processes, allowing them to truly excel in their job.

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