Daily huddles have been assimilated into the workings of several industries, including the oral health and dental industry. Practitioners see these huddles as a way to sync up first thing on a working day, organize the day’s tasks and provide an environment to bond. There are, however, several practitioners who find daily huddles unnecessary and ineffective. In several cases, this is, unfortunately, true. When huddles are conducted with no specific format or aim, they do tend to take up a lot of time and provide minimal to no value. The worst part is that most practices, if they fail on their first few tries, completely give up on the idea of a daily huddle.
When done properly with specific goals in mind, daily huddles can boost productivity and morale. They can serve as an important performance indicator for a practice as they give insightful information about the impact of different strategies on the working and revenue production of the practice. They are meant to be short and succinct. The aim is to have the team/s aligned with the day’s goals and strategize for the day’s undertaking.
Maintaining a checklist can help set up a huddle system that is pertinent to the practice.
Here are some of the important points that can be added to the daily huddle checklist.
- A snapshot of the goals that must be reached and the methods for reaching them.
- Targets that get met and how to improve them.
- A comparison of the previous day’s actual collection against the projected collection or goal.
- Updates and follow-ups on schedule modifications from the previous day.
- Review of winning measures that help staff to attract more potential patients.
- Discussion of challenges, difficulties, or confusions in the current day’s schedule and plans on how they can be sorted out.
- Major procedures scheduled for the day.
- New patients and special-needs patients.
- Current day’s allotted emergency time.
- New and old patient’s details.
- Necessary assistance with x-rays and other needs.
- Discussions and confirmations of lab cases.
- Results from post-op calls.
- Overdue continuing care.
- Financial information on the current day’s patients.
- Patients that need X-rays or photos as per treatment guidelines.
Daily huddles can benefit practices in a lot of ways. Here are some of the benefits of an effectively conducted daily huddle.
- Helps in team collaboration and bonding
- Prepares and inspires the team for the day
- Can be used as a time-management tool
- Helps identify any possible hiccups
- Helps fend off any distractions
- Can serve as a discussion and team interaction platform
- Can be a platform to celebrate success
Daily huddles bring with it a variety of benefits. However, they can also become really boring and tiring, especially if there are a lot of topics being covered during one huddle. Each practice needs to prioritize and establish a system that works for them. It may take some time to create the perfect daily huddle system but in the end, it is sure to pay off.
