Prioritizing tasks in the medical practice: How do you determine what’s really important?

2 hours. That’s the average amount of time doctors spend on administrative tasks each day. To overcome this situation, it’s essential for medical practice managers, secretaries and assistants to know how to optimally manage their daily tasks. Here are some tips you can use to improve your practice management by prioritizing your tasks and simplifying what can be simplified!

 

Why do I need to start prioritizing my medical practice tasks

In the hustle and bustle of a medical practice, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the constant flow of tasks. That’s where prioritization comes in. Indeed, with the shortage of medical staff, it’s all the more important to leave nothing to chance and simplify the lives of your teams.

Prioritizing tasks allows you to:

 

• Keep an overview
• Reduce stress and improve working conditions
• Improve productivity and efficiency of administrative and medical tasks management

 

How to prioritize medical practice tasks effectively

There are several methods for prioritizing tasks. Whether it’s the Eisenhower matrix or ABC analysis, the principle remains the same and can be summed up in two questions:

 

• Is the task urgent?
• Is the task important?

Asking yourself these questions for each task allows you to organize your day with the time you have available.

If a task is urgent and important (such as a medical emergency), it obviously has to be given priority. But for tasks that are important but not urgent, it can be useful to plan them in a moment of calm (which can be the case for certain administrative tasks). On the other hand, for tasks that are urgent but not important, it’s possible to delegate them.

Applying this method allows you and your team to gain time that you can then spendwith your patients.

 

Take the time to prepare your day

At the beginning of an intensive day, it can be tempting to jump right in. But spending a few minutes summarizing the tasks to be accomplished and planning the day’s work can be extremely beneficial. Not only does it save precious time in the long run, it also gives you a better overview.

Here are a few points to address at the start of the day:

 

• What’s urgent?
• What tasks couldn’t be completed yesterday?
• Which tasks need to be finished today?
• Which tasks cannot be dealt with due to time constraints and can be postponed until tomorrow?
• Who will take care of what?

 

Taking it a step further: simplifying day-to-day office work

Prioritizing is essential, but what if we were to tell you that it was also possible to easily relieve yourself of tedious administrative tasks? Many digital tools are available to help you save time on time-consuming tasks by automating certain aspects.

 

The right practice management software

First of all, there’s the medical practice management software. You may already be using software such as Mediway, MediOnline or Axenita. These programs can help you manage your practice or center with ease, thanks to a wide range of functions. They can help you create patient documents, set reminders or centralize all agendas in one place. With this one tool you can easily save time on time-consuming tasks.

 

Offer online booking

You can combine this with an online appointment booking solution. When patients book an appointment over the phone, it can easily take up your team’s time. Allowing online booking means less time spent on the phone and more time spent with patients on site.

At the Würenlos medical center, for example, the team saves 30 minutes daily thanks to online booking. Patients can make their own appointments 24/7, based on your availability, and choose the type of consultation that suits them best in your offer.

Whether by prioritizing your tasks or simplifying your daily work and that of your teams with digital tools, we hope these few tips will help you improve the management of your medical center. Don’t hesitate to consult our other articles on the subject to find out more.

 

Sources

Les médecins des hôpitaux sont toujours plus occupés par l’administration – Le Temps