For most employees at doctor’s offices and hospitals,dealing with the constant influx of patients takes priority over management solutions and HR. However, you might not realize that your facility is making a few mistakes that can be easily fixed. These mistakes can affect your patient’s confidence in your practice and lead them to seek medical care somewhere else.
Read on to find out some of the most common mistakes we see in doctors’ offices and how to address them.
One way to quickly wreck a patient’s confidence in your practice is by having old outdated information lying around the space.
Before a patient even talks to a doctor the first thing they do is look around the waiting area and offices. If you have tattered posters and out-of-date information on your walls, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in your visitors.
You may not have the time to be constantly checking on all the fliers on your wall. That’s when digital signage in your workplace can help.
Digital signs are screens that you can instantly update around your office with just a few clicks on the computer. These screens help improve patient safety by ensuring they get the most up-to-date information available.
These signs are a clear indicator that an office or hospital prioritizes communication with patients. It’s also easier to publish updates and important information to visitors on the display rather than relying on paper signs taped to doors.
Another common mistake many health practitioners make is only focusing on the treatment of illness. While it’s important to make a patient feel better if they are sick, teaching patients about prevention as much as treatment is necessary.
When you can talk to patients about how to prevent illness, they are able to take a more active role in maintaining their health.
Educating patients about how to stay healthy long term, or connecting them with people like dieticians, and dermatologists who can focus on prevention helps them realize you care about them.
Moreover, talking to patients about things like a healthy diet in relation to blood sugar levels or brain health as they age can make them realize how important their actions are.
In many healthcare systems, patients feel like they are just a number in a queue and do not have a relationship with their physician or nurse. When this happens, patients are much less likely to tell you the truth about the depth of their pain. They might feel uncomfortable when telling you more than the most urgent issues.
A distant relationship with the doctor can also lead to becoming avoidant of healthcare in the future, which could lead to bigger problems for them.
One way you might get around this is through the use of social media and email blasts. Taking a moment to create a message to your patients where you are smiling or doing something goofy makes you more approachable when you are in the office.
If people feel like they can relate to you, they will be able to disclose their problems with less anxiety. When they do that, you both benefit!
All in all, these common mistakes may not seem like a big deal on their own, but together they can make a big impact on how patients feel when they get to your office. These simple details that focus on