Recognize your key data points and make them a vital part of your operational strategy.
A 30,000 foot perspective is difficult when your primary focus is what’s in front of you. That’s somewhat the reality of daily dental practice operations – unless you use data-driven goals and strategies.
Data analysis makes a strong case for rising above the daily grind of practice life. But what about patient care, treatment-related tasks, staff workflows, and all the ingredients of dental practice operations at the ground level?
Know your data – Align your operations
Data-driven goals and strategies are more than a single moving part of your overall operations. Data analysis that actually drives operational strategy becomes a part of your dental practice culture.
This cultural mindset will help you keep essential data in view day to to day. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are a good point of reference.
These support and, in some instances, surpass your goals on a scale of priority. KPIs provide relevant markers for evaluating goals achieved or goals in process.
Aligning your dental practice operations around available and relevant data gives you that high-level flyover you need to keep things moving in a positive direction.
Learn from your mistakes
You’ve likely heard the phrase “the data doesn’t lie.” Data analysis is a sort of practice DNA you can trust to inform you of what’s on track…or what’s not!
For example, where are you experiencing operational set-backs, misalignment of resources, or team inefficiencies?
Data analysis can give you an adequate snapshot, or you can expend your lens for a broader, more practice-wide perspective.
Monitor all “moving parts” within your dental practice:
- Patient care standards
- Patient engagement including marketing, follow-up, etc.
- Inventory management and supply purchasing
- Team dynamics
- Case presentation to case acceptance ratios
You get the idea. If there’s data to be “mined” and measured – do so!
Leverage your patient data into better relationships
Your patient experience can improve as you study all related data. Remember to embrace the good and the bad relative to your patient relationships.
Patient attrition data can be painful to explore. But awareness of more than the reality that patients have merely left or become inactive gives you leverage for improvement. It’s about creating and tracking data points that get to a deeper “why.” That “why” gives you something to work with alongside your team.
- Gain perspective from “exit” conversations and online patient reviews (positive and negative).
- Review patient EHRs (Electronic Health Records) for systemic connections that add value to health-related conversations.
- Learn from patient payment histories to create loyalty incentives.
Look for operational drift
Data monitoring, management, and usage can have a direct impact on your dental practice revenue. This applies in big ways to how data is used across your operations.
Data analysis helps with course corrections when certain areas have drifted.
- Look for inefficiencies where automation could help overcome human error.
- Look for indicators where routine data entry is stalled and could be improved with a better (digital) system.
Data-driven goals and strategies provide a higher-altitude perspective into your dental practice operations. As earlier stated, effective data analytics is more of a mindset than a one-off task.
It’s about not merely recognizing your key datapoints but making them a vital part of your operational strategy.
Learn More
The following resources will provide more insight into data-driven goals and strategies for your dental practice:
- Follow a Data Mining Primer to Maximize Your Available Dental Patient Data
- Your Data Could Be A Catalyst to Increase Your Dental Practice Production
The Jarvis Analytics platform helps assure that you’re tracking the important metrics and staying on-track with your goals as your dental practice grows and expands. Experience Jarvis in action. Request a demo today!
