Prior to taking on the Finchley Dental Lounge in North London, I had always worked with a software system which, although I found easy to use, was quite basic. So, my first experience of Exact was when I inherited the system on buying the practice. Rather than going to the expense of changing software, I decided to work with it and engaged in a series of upgrades. It soon became apparent that the software contained numerous features from which I felt the practice could really benefit from. This realisation led me to find out more about Thrive and it became clear from my investigations that this programme could provide some of the solutions for which I was searching.
In particular, I wanted to find a way to analyse and improve the business aspects of the practice. The most important thing to me was to understand how our systems could be improved, and part of this was understanding how to get the best out of Exact, not just for recalls, but also for things such as online booking, text message reminders and creating more thorough treatment plans for our patients including importing digital images into their records.
During the Thrive programme a consultant visited us one day each month to monitor our progress and review the previous month’s reports. This session was invaluable; it gave me time to step back from clinical side of things and concentrate on the practice as a business. This process has really got me into good habits and although I still consider myself to be primarily a dentist, I now realise the importance of monitoring the business performance of my practice.
Thrive has also taught me the value of ensuring that all the systems and processes within the practice are working efficiently. For example it brought to my attention that our recalls were not working as effectively as they should, so we have implemented a new system that ensures every patient gets their recalls at precisely the right time. In the past, the only mechanism we used for recalls was sending letters, this now seems somewhat archaic and we have added both text messages and emails to our system which has improved our success rates substantially.
We are a fully private practice with around 700 patients on our database so we send an average of 30-50 recalls per month. We have increased our recall success by 67 per cent and we hope to improve this still further. Our new process starts with the sending of an email recall, patients who fail to answer are then sent a text message and if we still fail to get a response we send a letter. On the whole we have found patients are quite happy to give us their mobile phone numbers and email addresses, we routinely request this information from new patients and are in the process of updating the records for existing patients. This new way of communicating with patients has also improved the image of the practice and combined with our online booking facility has helped to modernise the image of the practice from the patients’ perspective. We have a good practice here now; a good ethos, good staff and the team are united around our aims and objectives, and thanks to the efficient and productive way in which we are now working I feel very confident about the future.