25 Tips: Taking the Clinic to the Next Level

  Sometimes it is not necessary to pay an expensive marketing consultant to state what a wound care professional should already know. The following are tips that will help take your clinic to the next level.

  1. Many times across most industries the key to truly effective marketing is simply creating a valuable and strong product in your field so that people will positively refer it to others.

  2. Any wound center or medical practice must be organized with the understanding that it should be fiscally sound and profitable, to ensure that the services provided will be ongoing.

  3. Just as there is no magic wand that professionals can use to heal every wound they encounter, there is no magic formula as to why one center succeeds when three others fail.

  4. The motivation behind the business plan should be honest and well thought out.

  5. It is essential that the clinic owners and workers enjoy their work.

  6. While success of most businesses is measured purely in financial terms, wound care is first measured in successful healing outcomes and a reduction in amputation.

  7. A perception exists that wound care is extremely profitable. If the primary motivation behind the establishment of a center is monetary, then failure is almost guaranteed.

  8. A genuine love of providing exceptional and evidence-based wound care is an intangible that is not always found among all providers.

  9. Wound care requires that its clinicians be willing to get down and dirty and their initial motivation must be and should remain to help patients heal as quickly as possible.

  10. Patient population does not allow for just a casual interaction on an intermittent basis. Professionals must be willing to spend the necessary time with each patient as dictated by their needs assessment at each encounter.

  11. The quest to do the right thing is never ending and often quite difficult.

  12. Wound care providers must treat each patient the way they would treat a family member remembering how they would wish to be treated if they were the ones in the treatment chair or hospital bed.

  13. There is only one first impression with new patients and one chance to make it a positive and last one.

  14. Whenever possible try to schedule new patient evaluations separately from existing patient appointments. This provides a setting where new patients will not feel rushed.

  15. During an initial new patient evaluation, the patient is unconsciously evaluating the professional. Simple listening goes a long way in the creation of positive first impressions, and will earn a greater degree of respect from the patient.

  16. Asking questions during the history and physical is only part of the assessment.

  17. Make each new patient feel like they are the most important patient of the day by optimal scheduling and courteous listening.

  18. Treat the established patients with continued respect.

  19. Establish the understanding with patients during the initial encounter that they need to meet you half way in the management and treatment of their wounds. This places a vested interest in the patient’s condition back on them.

  20. In subsequent encounters it is important to maintain the lines of communication and do not take the fact that the patient has returned for follow-up care for granted.

  21. Thank patients at the end of each encounter.

  22. Remind patients to call if they are experiencing any new concerns prior to their next appointment.

  23. Share in your all patient’s success and explain issues to them when things are not going as planned with the assurance that you are not giving up on them.

  24. The Rules of 5’s states that if one does something good for someone, they will tell five others about the good deed performed. But if someone is mistreated, they will tell five others about it only five times faster than they would tell about the positive experience.

  25. Coffee mugs and pens emblazoned with your wound center’s logo have a place; unfortunately this place is often in the trash or a shelf, rarely to be seen again.