PM_M.11 Managing workload with effective tools and triaging

Managing workload with effective tools such as MS Excel, Trello, Mindmaps, Power Point and triaging

The challenge

• I am having to multitask and manage many jobs and it is overwhelming
• I attend to patient phone calls, walk-ins, putting patients on hold, Dentist requests, messages to be passed on, helping DAs with sterilising, ordering stock, attending to emails, patient complaints, billing and more  
• Scheduling and rescheduling the appointment books takes a long time  
• I don’t seem to have enough time in the day to complete all my jobs. I am not doign a good job
• I loose track of my jobs as there are so many. Staff think I am disorganised
• There are sticky notes everywhere. I wish I had better control of my workload.

Target audience:  Receptionists, Managers, Owners, Clinic Coordinators, Treatment coordinators

Majority of dental practices continue to use Microsoft WORD in managing common practice operations such as stock management, rosters, contact list, lab bills, task lists, job sheets, training programmes and many more common dental business operational activities. WORD is not the right tool for managing these operational activities.  EXCEL allows you to Automate and get the job done much quicker and easier with less errors.

Word is a word processing application and should be limited to writing documents like letters or essays where text formatting is essential. Excel, on the other hand, is a spreadsheet application where you input data in rows and columns which then allow you to sort, filter, and calculate how the information is related to each other.  One can create pivot tables, set rules, query the data, use graphs to visually see what the data is saying.  This is not just for analysing and managing practice KPIs but for many other routine and repetitive tasks such as when:

• Typing in rows and columns with numbers – especially dollar signs, decimals, dates, days – Drag and allow excel to do it for you automatically
• Using tabs to make columns
• If you have any calculations at all
• If you have rows of text with repeating words

This workshop REC#2 will empower you with the skills needed to efficiently manage the vast amount of information and data in a dental practice quickly and easily with EXCEL.  It will show you how to set up spread sheets correctly, how to filter, how to set up common formulas to compute numeric data quickly.