Earlier this month, several staff members from the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry traveled to Iowa City, Iowa to present on a variety of topics at the 2017 axiUm Consortium Midyear Meeting. The meeting brings together representatives from institutions across the nation to share innovations and updates regarding chart tracking, treatment planning, and various other aspects of practice management.
Janell Shaner, Jill Townsend, and Jeffery Tyler Witty delivered a presentation on the newly implemented Patient Access Team (PAT). The PAT is a group of cross-trained staff that includes members from both front desk registration and financial counseling. An initial group of 31 existing employees received standardized training and can now support areas across any clinic where there may be absences, position vacancies or scheduled vacations.
Implementing the Patient Access Team has resulted in numerous positive changes. Equipping staff members with the necessary skills to work across each specific area of specialty has created a climate of better teamwork and boosted workplace morale. Weekly key performance indicator (KPI) reports have kept staff updated on their performance, and allowed them to quickly recognize opportunities for improvement. Overall, this has led to a marked improvement in the patient appointing and check-in processes.
Shaner, Townsend, and Witty also gave a second presentation on transitioning scheduling from clinics to a centralized call center. While call centers are not new in the medical field, they are not as widely used in the dental enterprise. In fact, UKCD has become one of the first academic institutions to execute a call center. Ten new staff members, supervised by Dental Team Coordinator James Boxx, will field all patient calls across each of the 10 clinics. The goal is to improve overall patient satisfaction by expanding phone hours, answering all calls, and reducing hold times.
Systems Analyst Andy Simonds presented on UKCD's use of Tableau data visualization software, and how allowing users to build custom dashboards can alleviate some of the burden on power users.
"My idea is similar to how axiUm's built-in info manager module works with the added benefit of using charts and graphs to visually view the data instead of only being able to view the data in a table view. What we will also be able to do is allow the user to drill into the data to see what makes up specific data points on the charts and graphs," Simonds said.
The fourth and final UKCD-led presentation of the meeting was given by Billing and Collections Manager Kathleen Hertz and Information Technology Manager Tyler Witty. The pair discussed utilizing lockbox in the payment deposit and posting process. The project was inspired by the University of Iowa College of Dentistry implementing a similar procedure. After adjusting certain aspects to the specific needs of UKCD, Hertz and Witty found that taking advantage of the automated process saved posters over 500 production hours per year.
The axiUm Consortium supports collaboration in clinical, financial, and information technology advancements among dental institutions. The findings shared by UKCD support a climate of growth and achievement within the profession. For more information on this year's axiUm Consortium presentations, visit www.axiumconsortium.org.