Monitor and optimise business performance with the right data

Featured Products Promotional Features

Posted by: Dental Design 20th March 2024

In today’s world, it is just as important to work on your business as it is in your business. For dental practice owners, this means regularly assessing practice performance, monitoring key data and using the information to guide business decisions. This can be achieved either by allocating time to review the numbers yourself, or delegating the task to the practice manager. Another appropriate professional – for example, a business development manager – may also be appropriate. Whoever is responsible, it is crucial that they have access to the right data in order to effectively evaluate the practice and facilitate growth.

So, what information should be tracked?

The answer to this question is complex and will depend on a number of factors, including the size of your practice, your clinical focus and your business objectives. That’s why it’s essential to establish what you want to achieve before you start – only then can you make sure you are monitoring the right data, and you know what you’re looking for and how to use the information you obtain.

As an example, you could review your most popular treatments to help you understand your patient base. If most of your appointments are for general or paediatric dentistry, then you are likely to be attracting families. This could help to inform a potential practice refurbishment, tailoring the décor to your typical patients to enhance their experience. If your books are full of complex restorative or dental implant procedures, then there may be merit in bringing on more specialists or experts in these fields as a way of expanding capability and growing the business.

If you’re interested in improving efficiencies, then consider monitoring chair occupancy, aiming to minimise wasted time in any of your surgeries. A similar metric might be to calculate how many patients are seen each day, week or month, with the goal of increasing footfall with more efficient daily workflows. Furthermore, reviewing how surgery time is split between members of the dental team could be useful in optimising skill mix in the practice for more streamlined and efficient patient care.

Perhaps the goal is to attract new business by improving the patient experience you offer and encouraging positive reviews from those you treat. In this case, you might record ratings from existing patients and use their feedback to guide adjustments to your services.

For principals looking to increase revenue and boost profitability of their practices, frequently reviewing your finances will be essential. This will ensure a comprehensive understanding of how outgoings compare to income, how much of the revenue is reinvested back into the business and what money is left over.

This is not an exhaustive list of areas to monitor and collect data within. However, they offer a strong starting point, depending on your business goals. Of course, it’s important to remember that the numbers alone are not enough. You have to understand why key trends exist throughout your practice and what you can do to change them for the better – but it all starts with the data.

Once you have decided what you wish to measure, there are several ways to collect and record the relevant information. For example, you may need to create some patient surveys in order to determine what your patients think of your practice and the service they receive. For almost everything else, you will rely on your practice management software and the data that it records throughout the days, months and years. This means you need a solution that you can trust, which monitors the right data for you and that makes this data easily accessible.

AeronaDental, for example, offers a vast range of real-time and reflective reports from ‘End of Day Reports’ to ‘Patients Seen’ within any specified time period. You can access financial reports and assess everything from revenue per clinician or per treatment to booking capacity and efficiency, patient spend, appointment types and statuses (including number of no-shows or cancellations), as well as treatment trends throughout different months of the year. The technology provides the flexibility to access the required data any way you wish – with reports available to view online, print or export via Microsoft Excel.

The data acquired will enable you to monitor business performance, identify areas of potential improvement and assess your progress against your business goals. This information can also steer your marketing efforts, your investment in technology and your staff management. Ultimately, it is essential for the effective growth and success of your practice.

For the knowledge you need to grow your business and the confidence to act upon it, be sure to choose the right practice management software for you.