Creating Perfect Patient Encounters

Last week I wrote about GEMBA walks and how they can revolutionize your practice by turning chaotic “busyness” into focused productivity. But how does this knowledge play into your regular administrative routines? One of the most important weekly routines that we have discovered is the weekly Admin/Practitioner WIP review. The insights from a GEMBA walk can supercharge these weekly planning sessions, helping to make every patient encounter successful.

First, let's do a quick refresher. A WIP review is a weekly one-on-one planning session where a member of the admin team reviews the upcoming week's patient appointments with each practitioner. The goal? To make sure all of the necessary elements are in place for a flawless patient experience. This involves verifying insurance coverage, ensuring all necessary supplies are ready, prepping for any special activities (outcomes measures?) during the appointment, and generally confirming that all the resources are aligned for success.

So, how does the knowledge gained through your GEMBA walk fit into all this? Well, the insights you gain from observing your practice's "real place" can directly inform these planning sessions. For instance, let's say during your GEMBA walk you notice that the admin team often scrambles last-minute to verify insurance details, creating unnecessary stress and room for error. With this observation, you can introduce a new protocol to tackle insurance verifications well in advance of the weekly WIP reviews. This shift from reactive to proactive planning epitomizes focused productivity, all thanks to your GEMBA findings.

The beauty of weaving GEMBA insights into your WIP meetings is the ripple effect it has on efficiency. When you're not scrambling to put out fires—like that last-minute scramble to check if a particular supply is available—you're free to engage in more strategic thinking. This is where we dial back to Chevron's sage advice: "There is always time to do it right." GEMBA ensures you take the time to identify and remedy inefficiencies so that when you sit down for your WIP review, you can concentrate on doing things right, not just getting them done.

Now let's talk patient impact, the ultimate metric of our success. WIP reviews fueled by GEMBA insights ensure that patient encounters are not just transactions but stepping stones toward each patient’s health goals. For example, if the GEMBA walk reveals that patients often feel rushed during consultations, you can carve out more time during appointments for discussions, which could be crucial for a patient's ongoing treatment plan.

Incorporating GEMBA wisdom into your WIP meetings also fosters a culture of transparency and teamwork. Your staff, from admin to practitioners, becomes more invested in these meetings, knowing that their observations have been considered and that changes are based on actual on-the-ground needs. This collective work ensures that the focus isn’t just on ticking off administrative boxes but on delivering exceptional patient experiences.

When done right, the fusion of GEMBA walks and WIP reviews can be transformative. It’s about evolving from frenzied, last-minute preps to calm, well-orchestrated patient encounters that move the needle on patient goals. So, the next time you set out on a GEMBA walk, think about how those insights can be the key to unlocking more impactful patient care and administrative activities.