Data, facts and instruments on the German health system
What it’s all about
Practice teams often get in their own way when it comes to improving and controlling their practice management with a wrong mindset. The solution is a simple system of ratios that automatically signals the need for action.
Key figures show the way
The activation of unused opportunities for improvement is often omitted in GP and specialist practices:
Almost 50% of the best practice standard, i.e. those regulations, instruments and behaviours that are necessary for a smoothly functioning practice operation even under changing conditions, are not used.
This is due to a mindset characterised by operational blindness and analytical inactivity, which makes action superficially unnecessary, since nothing can be changed anyway.
An approach preferred by the upcoming generation of physicians to avoid sweeping generalisations and generalisations, to exploit the potential of optimising approaches and to control operations are concise and objectifying key figures,
- which, with regard to the instruments, processes and behaviour of practice management used, describe what the status of action is, how it should ideally be developed and what level of implementation can be found in companies similar to the specialist groups, supplemented by the information
- which effects result from the use of the practice management instruments, which would be ideal and which effects are achieved in the specialist group and
- from which concrete goals can be derived and their achievement can be monitored.
A structured way out
These questions are answered by a Practice Management Comparison©. This is an assessment whose benchmarks are the results of a professional group and best practice benchmarking. A practice development carried out with its help is not based on the subjective assessments of the practice team or a consultant, but measures the practice management quality as a qualitative comparison in relation to the representative market standard and the performance optimum.The effort required to determine the necessary data is extremely low with the help of validated-structured data documentation and is possible for all individual action areas of practice management, but also for their aggregation.
A case study
In a cardiology practice, the two practice owners noticed increasing management problems, but could not identify a cause for this. Both were convinced that they were doing what was possible and necessary to manage their staff adequately. A practice management comparison showed that the use of management tools in relation to the best practice standard was 49.8%, i.e. just under half of the necessary regulations were realised. With a ratio of 69.3%, the intensity of use was also 1/3 below the average of the specialist group. In the output area, the quality of management from the staff perspective (satisfaction of the medical assistants in relation to their requirements) resulted in a score of 31.5%, the corresponding specialist group value was 58.1%.
Insights create awareness
A look at the company comparison data showed, among other things, that important instruments such as regular morning meetings and team meetings were hardly carried out. Only from the objectifying assessments did the surgeons realise the importance of these aspects, to which they had previously attached no significance. All in all, the comparison
- the comparison not only identified optimisation options,
- but also sensitised the practice owners to the necessity of intensified management activity through the market references and
- offered a concept for managing the entire operation.
Interested GPs and specialists can purchase the Praxismanagement-Betriebsvergleich© via our shop.
UP: Unlocking Potentials 