Episode 708: You Need to Standardize Your Rooms

 Tiff and Britt are here to address the chaos circling dental practices lately. The consultants provide tips for freeing up brain space:

1. Standardize your rooms

2. Color-code operatories

3. Schedule out quarterly ops checks

Episode resources:

Reach out to Tiff and Britt: [email protected] 

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Transcript:

0:00:05.8 Kiera Dent: Hey everyone. Welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host Kiera Dent. And I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession. With those two perspectives I've been a dental assistant treatment coordinator, scheduler, filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices, coaching teams. Yep. We don't just understand you we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams grow VIP experiences, reduce stress and create A teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. Hello Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and you guys, you are in for the best treat of your life Consultant takeover. That's right. Get ready. They're dropping some dynamite. Our consulting team is incredible guys and we are so blessed and so fortunate to have them sharing tips and tricks with you today. And as always thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

0:01:13.4 Tiff: Britt you're here with me I wanna call you Brity Boo because I have my cat sitting right next to me. I can see him out the corner of my eye and I call him Binxy Boo. I was like "Brity boo you're here". I'm so excited. How are you today?

0:01:26.9 Britt: I'm doing great I'm happy it's podcast day. I'm like oh I get to see Tiff for a little while hang out and talk about dental stuff. I'm excited.

0:01:35.3 Tiff: I know. We can geek out together and talk about systems and processes and end our week on a really big high. It's great.

0:01:44.2 Britt: Thats a great way to end the week.

[laughter]

0:01:47.5 Tiff: It is, it is. It's fun. And we don't... We know we've said this before, I say it a million times, we live 20 minutes apart but we never see each other that's... We both have busy schedules but I'm not gonna deny the fact that my schedule is complete chaos 100% of the time. One day we're gonna make it happen and it's gonna be paddleboarding anyways.

0:02:06.1 Britt: Oh for sure. I'm here for paddleboarding anytime.

0:02:09.9 Tiff: Same. Side tangent on the paddleboard note my new favorite thing to do is to paddleboard down the Salt River. It's 'cause I hate everybody tubes it right? If none of you know Arizona does have a little river runs through it, it's not super crazy or anything.

0:02:29.5 Britt: One for Arizona.

[laughter]

0:02:32.0 Tiff: It is, we have some water and you can... I feel like all the party-goers they tube down it, right? But then there's lost shoes. And I have... I'm realizing in my life... My older life now that I have control issues and I'm like, I can't control where I'm going or what's happening on this tube but I'm literally just laying there letting the river take me down. But paddleboarding, it was much fun, we've done it a few times now that's our goal. We need to set a date, we need it locked in early morning 'cause it's 115 degrees outside. But we're gonna paddleboard down the Salt River.

0:03:08.8 Britt: That's the way I do it Tiff, you start low enough on the river past all the tumors right? And then float your way. See some wild horses.

0:03:16.5 Tiff: Oh they're beautiful. Yes. Okay, we're gonna do it. We'll make the plans. You guys out there listening hold us accountable to it. That's what we do for you, we are accountability masters, that's the piece that we really get right. That's something that we get different than any other company. And I'm asking you to hold Britt and I accountable because I say this all the time. And then guess what? Tiff gets busy and we never go paddleboarding. You need...

0:03:39.6 Britt: Next time we podcast together, which may not be the next podcast guys, I'll throw that out there, [laughter] next time we podcast together, we've gotta make sure that we've done it. That's the accountability piece. It's gonna happen but today we're gonna talk about a little dentistry, we're just gonna giving you a little piece of Arizona because we do love it. But we get to talk dentistry today.

0:04:01.0 Tiff: I know. And it's really cool the topic that we've got because something that's been coming up for me a lot in my personal life actually, like friends of mine and the personal coaching I do for little friends that I'm like, "why would you do that?" And I just throw all that out there and in offices I've been in a lot of practices the last couple weeks. My life's been a little chaotic but it's been really fun because I've really seen so many different dynamics in person on boots on the ground and I really have seen this theme coming up a lot for most of my practices and even the practices that I'm just coaching virtually or I haven't gotten to their practice yet. They're really seeing this kind of summertime mix up where they're just like "I don't know what happened".

0:04:42.1 Tiff: Like everything's upside down and it's because there's been this lack of consistency in the practice. We get really busy. We have these stints of like "oh my gosh we're so busy". And March was a really good month for a lot of my practices. April was decent and then May spiked again for a lot of my practices. And when we have those busy time periods right? That's when our systems get lost and we just start working really hard to do what we can in the moment of busy. And some of those pieces of consistency just get lost. And back office, I wanna speak on back office today 'cause my heart lies with my dental assistants and I know your heart lies with your hygienist in this.

0:05:21.4 Britt: Oh the best. You've got your back office team today.

0:05:24.6 Tiff: You too. I know what I love it. And we both have that perspective and we get to see it. And one of the pieces that is so simple that gets missed a lot is how the rooms are set up. And something that I coach on and I know you coach on is really removing chaos from your brain. Like removing the thought process of it. Why are you making life difficult, right? Why make it more difficult than it needs to be? If you're back office rooms, if every time you go into an operatory it's a different setup. My brain now has to work extra and overtime walking into this operatory going, wait, but the impression material guns are in drawer three or, oh wait, my bond is over here across the room, whereas in the other room it's right next to me. Having those rooms different every single time is chaotic it's such an easy piece of chaos to just remove and make your life so much easier. And in hygiene it's very similar because sometimes you guys get your room switched, right? Because if you are...

0:06:24.8 Tiff: If your patient is running late, and you're running late on a patient, the next hygienist doesn't have a patient yet, they'll take your patient in there. And then now you're such flippity-flop, and what if you feel like your varnish is in a totally different spot, and you're lost. How frustrating is that?

0:06:40.5 Britt: I feel like this is also where we get into the, well, that's TIFSOP, right?

0:06:45.9 Tiff: Yeah, yeah. Yes.

0:06:46.4 Britt: But that's TIFSOP, and I don't wanna see a patient in TIFSOP. And it's like, well, why don't you wanna go see a patient in TIFSOP? What is it that's different about TIFSOP that you don't wanna go work out of that room, which just throws a kink in things, and we could get a lot more done and be a lot more efficient if we could all work in every room.

0:07:03.5 Tiff: Exactly. I totally agree. I totally agree. I love that hygienists always have their rooms, which I totally, totally have your room. But be willing and open to have your room look the same as everyone else's. Come together and figure out what works the best, what's the flow. I'm in dental assistants, I've seen that so much, because we will choose our favorite room. Especially with the one that's been there the longest. That head honcho dental assistant is like, no, I like the setup of this room. I've got the window. I've got the cupboards where I need them. These drawers don't stick, this is my room. And then it turns into your little room, like my bedroom is so much different than Brody 's bedroom because it's mine. But if they're ours, they need to be the same.

0:07:46.3 Tiff: So when we're running around like chickens, it makes me laugh every time when I'm in office, and I'm like, you guys are so chaotic. And they're like, where's this? Where's that? And I'm like, just those little things in your life, you just remove those little pieces of chaos that you can make seamless and consistent. That frees up so much brain space and reduces stress so much. It's insane to me. Just knowing, walking into a kitchen and knowing what drawer you need to go into versus walking into your best friend's kitchen. I know my best friend used to come into my kitchen, and she'd be like, "Nothing about this is intuitive. I cannot find anything." And I'm like, "Tricia, it's not your kitchen. It's my kitchen. So it's where I want it to be."

0:08:31.5 Tiff: Or I know Kiera has her silverware so far from the refrigerator, the plates, the everything, but it's because she has it next to the dishwasher. She wants to turn around and put the silverware in there. And I'm like, that seems crazy to me. But it also makes sense. I understand the efficiency piece. I feel like that's how we get with our operatories. But if we all could just standardize every operatory in the office and make it really clean, make it really easy, it reduces that stress and that chaos. And then also, side note, as you're onboarding new people, because we all know we're hiring and onboarding right now. That's not... It's a fact of life.

0:09:10.3 Britt: Welcome to the last couple of years.

[laughter]

0:09:11.6 Tiff: Yeah, it's just a fact of life. It's gonna keep going, so don't get your hopes up. It's still gonna happen. So as you're hiring and onboarding people, they only have to learn one setup. Just make it the same. And then... What about, I don't, this just popped in my head. I don't think I've ever done this to this extent, but I feel like this might be a really good idea for operations manual.

0:09:34.6 Britt: Tell me what it is, because it might be something that I've done.

[laughter]

0:09:38.7 Tiff: I agree. I agree. I was just thinking like, 'cause we take pictures of our setups. Our tray setups and our burr blocks. Open a drawer and take a picture of the drawer and put it in your manual with how many of each product you should have in that drawer.

0:09:55.3 Britt: 100%. Absolutely something I've done, yes.

0:09:58.6 Tiff: See, I knew it.

0:10:00.0 Britt: Highly recommend. And then also I would have my team go through once a quarter and like great, go through make sure all the ops are set up the way that they're supposed to and make sure everything's stacked. Because yes, people will like, we're humans. They'll start to throw things in what they think is an easy spot, but then it gets hidden there and we forget about it. Go through, deep clean the operatories, make sure everything is set up according to the pictures, the way it's supposed to be set up. So we're good to go.

0:10:27.9 Tiff: So did you do that? I have a question. Did you do that operatory check? Did you schedule it? For the accountability, I figured.

0:10:37.6 Britt: Yeah, my lead assistant did it for my doctor ops. Hygiene did it for hygiene ops. Then they would go through and make sure everything is all set up the same. Even to another level of this guys, like, 'cause that's first level of organization sometimes. Also just the bigger you get, a lot of my time in practice was spent in a big practice where we had five doctors. So the level of organization, so things don't go missing has to be a little bit higher. We also had every room set things that would go in there when it comes to instruments too. And they were all color coded. Each op had their color. So it's like, great. You had so many limited kits that go in there. You've got so many of certain instruments that doctors might want that are not in a specific kit. That way every room's got it. Every room had a color. Once it goes through sterilization, you see it, that color goes right back into the operatory. Another tip on keeping things the same is also those things that are nice to have that you use often enough that it warrants having one in each op. If it doesn't warrant having it in each op, which I would say, if you're not using it every day or every other day, then those are things that can be shared and have a set spot that might be in a storage closet or somewhere where there's a set spot that it goes back to.

0:11:52.4 Tiff: I love it. I love your level of organization. My level of organization is the like, it looks good in this drawer right now. [laughter] It's fine, I'll move it later.

0:12:00.6 Britt: Also, when you have so many people that it's like, great. I have to go search through how many operatories to try and find the thing that I'm looking for. It's just a big time.

0:12:08.2 Tiff: A one crown remover. It was always the crown remover. [laughter] It's always drawer to drawer. He's like, I just need the thing. And I'm like, I'm looking, it's in here. It's in one of these operatories, we had four and I was just like, I'll find it. I'll find it, I swear. I love that.

0:12:25.8 Britt: If you continue like 10 plus, it's a lot of searching that's gotta happen.

[laughter]

0:12:30.3 Tiff: I know I was like, I'm glad we only have four. I don't know how we did what we did out of only four operatories, but I was like, shook, 'cause I'm in the, I was everywhere. I was rushing like a fricking chicken all the time. I felt like we were busy practice and that's how we operated. It was like, it's fine. It's fine. Everything's fine. And I'd be like in the middle of the hallway, like, it's not fine. [laughter] There's gotta be a better way. So I've worked it all, I get it, and we found better ways. So I'm gonna pull out some pieces there because I think those are awesome. I take notes for us. [laughter] Those were some awesome [0:13:05.3] ____.

0:13:05.4 Britt: Which I appreciate.

[laughter]

0:13:06.1 Tiff: It's 'cause I can't remember them by the way time we get to the end. I gotta write it down. So some of the pieces that I pulled out from what you just said was, I think number one, something that you guys can all go and do, and this is something, again, that we train in offices and I've had a few practices where my in-office visit has been like a half day with the dental assistants doing stuff just like this. I've had to hold... I've literally told the dental assistant, "Get out the chair." I have sat there for half the day, three patients worth, three long appointments, I have sat there assisting, training that assistant how to assist. She is now the lead assistant. Immediately she was like, "Oh my gosh, I get it" because when I walked by, I see her with two suctions, and I was like, "Surely don't need both of those, so let's help."

[laughter]

0:13:54.4 Tiff: And he is over there wiping his mirror every 30 seconds, and I was like, "Doc, I swear if I watch you take that mirror out of that mouth one more time, I'm gonna freak out. And this is why your appointments are so long because your assistant doesn't know how to assist and you don't know how to train her how to assist." So I had to train the doctor how to train the assistant, and that's just how it works. Sometimes that's what we do when we're boots on the ground in the practice.

0:14:13.0 Tiff: Those are the kinds of things that we see that people don't even realize is happening because it's just day-to-day life. So same thing like this, if you walked into an office and you saw me running around looking for a crown remover, you'd be like, "Why don't you have one in each operatory? Where's your color-coded bands?" And I think that's brilliant. So I think the first thing that all of you guys can easily do as an office and as an action item is to standardize your rooms. And I add to that the color code each operatory, I really think that's brilliant because no matter what, then you know for sure you have the same number of instruments in each operatory and that they're in there. And then you guys guess who can help put those instruments in the rooms.

0:14:53.8 Tiff: Britt said that because she's like, "As a hygienist, I don't know where any of these go, so I leave them on the counter." But if they're color-coded and you know the room's colors, it makes sense. Your hygiene team will be more willing to help. I get a lot of complaints from a lot of dental assistants that are like, "My diva hygienist won't help in sterilization." Well, maybe it's too difficult. Simplify the process, make it easy because they're freaking busy. So simplify it, make it easy so that anyone can do it. Your office manager walking by seeing instruments done can put them away if they're color-coded. So I loved that. So number one, standardize your rooms, color-code each operatory, and get those instruments color-coded. I would do the pictures for your operatory or for your operations manual. Take pictures of each of those stores, take pictures of the setups, take pictures of everything, and then also have it written out.

0:15:42.5 Tiff: The reason that we say to do both of those is because you have your visual learners, and then you have your learners that retain by practice, or by hand, or by reading. But I'm a picture person. I'm gonna look at that picture and I'm gonna be like, "Great, this goes here, this goes here." It's like those old games when we were little, you just had the blocks going where the blocks go. And then Britt, you know you get me with this one. Schedule out one time a quarter for those op checks. And I love... I'm gonna give you massive kudos because you pulled out and specifically said that you had the leads do it, and I think that's huge because what you did was obviously you gave them a duty as a lead. That is like a lead duty, but you also removed the opportunity for the my op situation, because your leads are gonna go through and make sure that they're exactly how they need to be. You're not saying one time a quarter, everybody sweeps it, you're saying one time a quarter the person who's gonna hold accountability to this does it so that there's no room for that my operatory situation. I loved that. I thought that was really beautiful.

0:16:46.2 Britt: And then there's one person that's making sure. We can probably all look at a picture and someone might miss something. But if it's the same person checking every single op, then it's better consistency for everything too.

0:16:57.6 Tiff: I love it. You're so smart. You are just so good at the little details like that like, "No. That sounds great, but I know there's a next level" and you always see that next level of detail oriented-ness, and I freaking love it. [laughter] So good job. Good job. Okay, guys.

0:17:15.2 Britt: Yeah. Thanks, Tiff. My other tip when it comes to color coding, just another thing to back it because sometimes issues that can come up with operatories. We all have amazing teams and we wanna think we're always awesome, but sometimes it's like, "Oh, I might be missing something, so I'm just... Let me just go the next op and take something from the next op." And then the next op is missing it. So that's the other thing. Doesn't mean you can't borrow, but it means that everything ends up back in the same op. So if you borrow something or something is missing, it's a specific color and we don't have people just be like, "Well, mine's done. Let me just take it from here, and then it's gonna look like I have everything in my op."

[laughter]

0:17:52.9 Tiff: That was me. I'm not gonna lie. That was me. I'm like, "Shoot, I'm missing this instrument. Let me just grab it from op two 'cause we got a patient right now."

0:17:58.4 Britt: Everybody does that.

0:18:00.2 Tiff: That was me.

0:18:00.4 Britt: [0:18:00.4] ____ not working. Let me go find another one. I'll just trade these suckers out.

0:18:03.1 Tiff: Exactly. That's a her problem, not a me problem.

[laughter]

0:18:06.3 Britt: Right.

0:18:07.2 Tiff: Yeah.

0:18:07.5 Britt: I got my solution.

[laughter]

0:18:08.4 Tiff: Exactly. She can find her solution. That was totally me. I get it. I was a dental assistant in my younger years.

[laughter]

0:18:17.1 Britt: Different tip for the tip today. Different tip for the tip today.

[laughter]

0:18:19.9 Tiff: Yeah. We'll get my doctor on one day. I'll pull him on one of these and he can really let you know what Tiff was like. That would be a fun one.

0:18:27.6 Britt: [0:18:27.6] ____.

0:18:27.8 Tiff: Okay, on the color... What'd you say?

0:18:28.7 Britt: Yeah, go for it. I just said these really... I just wanted to put a plug in. This sounds like something, I think for sometimes when I bring this up to people, when we'll go in office, we'll see some of the chaos and we can see through all the muck of what's going on, and it's like, "You guys just need everything set up the same way."

0:18:46.4 Tiff: Yeah.

0:18:47.4 Britt: That's what we need to do. And they're like, "What? It's functioning fine, we've got everything." And it's like, this sounds really simple and it doesn't have that much of an impact, but I guarantee you it's one of those things once the offices actually implement it, I've seen an office go from chaos, and they come back and they're like, "It was genius. It made things so much smoother."

0:19:06.0 Tiff: Yeah, for sure. You just remove the thought process on one little thing, and you open up so much room for other stuff. I now have more time in my day because I'm not spending it searching for something, so I have more time in my day, and I have more presence and awareness with my patient. So my patient experience goes up, my stress goes down, and life is easy just from something so seemingly simple, which is great because guess how easy it is to implement and keep up on if it's simple. It's that easy. So I love it. I love it. So standardize your rooms. Okay. Color-code each op. That means you can't steal them, and if you do, they go back. Another piece to that, 'cause I know a lot of practices use the color coding for a crown prep or a filling, I know our crown preps were green, our fillings were yellow, just add another color to it. You can have a yellow-green or a yellow-pink, and that's op two's filling cassette.

0:20:03.8 Tiff: So just don't make it too difficult, you guys. Just don't. Just sometimes things are too simple and we try to make them hard. So standardize your rooms, color-code each op, take pictures of the drawers and the setups for your operations manual, and then schedule with your leads or whomever you feel like you can really trust to get it done if you don't have leads yet. Schedule with them one time per quarter to do a full-blown op check. That's cleaning it out. I know we used to take all of the things out and clean the drawers, and there would always be so much impression material down at the bottom or crusty...

0:20:35.8 Britt: Prophy paste.

0:20:36.1 Tiff: Filling material, prophy paste. Prophy paste everywhere. Prophy paste and fluoride, that stuff gets everywhere. Yeah, so I know, just deep clean it. I love that idea. And then restock and make sure everything's the same. So consistency is key. Remove some of that chaos, standardize them, take some pictures. One time per quarter, just get those suckers busted out. And if you feel like you need a little bit more information, a little bit of help, maybe there was something we said today that was confusing or you want a little extra, just email us, you guys, [email protected]. We are always open, willing to help. And just so you know, those emails are answered by The Dental A-Team, number one, and typically, they get pushed to the consultants when those questions come through. So you are getting an answer, in most cases, from the consultant. And regardless, most of our team has had a dental background in some way.

0:21:23.2 Tiff: Even our best sales girl ever that we love so freaking much, she makes me so happy, our sales and marketing girl, Cass, was a hygienist. So we're all here. We've all been in your shoes. That's something that we pridefully own as a company. We have all been in your shoes. We know what it's like. I just gave you all of my dirty laundry as a dental assistant. [laughter] We have figured it out and we do really well with practices because we have that background. Teams can trust us because we have that background, and we can speak from a place where we really truly understand who you are because we have been you. So reach out, let us know what we can do. Drop us a five star review with some tips and tricks you guys might have. I see this all the time because people read those reviews, and if you can add value to what we've already said, why not? So pop us a review, let us know how you liked it. Add some tips and tricks in there if you've got them, and we can't wait to see you next time. Britt, thank you so much for being here with me today. I always have so much fun podcasting.

0:22:18.7 Britt: Always a good time. [laughter]

0:22:20.6 Tiff: Yeah, thanks guys.

0:22:24.3 KD: And that wraps it up for another episode of The Dental A Team Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.