Is your practice a ‘learning company’?

Leading practices prioritize staff education and offer time and resources for training.

Issue: June 10, 2018

ByJohn B. Pinto

“In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards, and teachers. They are responsible for building organizations where people continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models — that is, they are responsible for learning.”
– Peter Senge

In America, an ophthalmologist is only allowed to practice after spending more than 50,000 hours in formal education and passing a few thousand quizzes, tests and board examinations. Interestingly, the same ophthalmologist often balks at the cost and downtime of staff training, all the while complaining about staff competency.

Peter Senge, an MIT systems scientist, coined the term “learning organization” in his landmark book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. A learning company facilitates the education of its members and in so doing continuously transforms and improves itself.

All ophthalmology practices should be learning-centric. Not only are eye surgeons highly educated, but the practices they own and work in are more complex and high-stakes than most business firms. But only a rare few practice owners and administrators fully embrace the value of learning, and fewer still fully formalize staff education and training.

Leading practices are learning organizations, where staff training is a priority and MD-owners give their own time and considerable resources to bring new staff up to speed and continuously improve the skills of experienced staff. Here is a self-assessment to complete as a group exercise to measure selected dimensions of your practice’s training and education efforts. This list of attributes is by no means complete, and no practice could be expected to have high scores in all of these areas.

Score each item on this 20-point list based on the following scale:

5: I strongly agree with this statement.

4: I agree with this statement.

3: I am neutral. I neither agree nor disagree with this statement.

2: I disagree with this statement.

1: I strongly disagree with this statement.

___ Our policy and procedure (P&P) manuals are complete and up to date for each department.
___ These P&P manuals are used as active training documents, not just kept on a shelf.
___ We use a formal onboarding checklist for each new staffer to assure each is well-oriented.
___ We arrange at least 2 formal hours of ongoing training per experienced support staffer per month.
___ The providers are all on the same page; techs only have to memorize one agreed protocol, not a different protocol for each doctor.
___ We cross-train staff; work-up techs know how to scribe, and check-in clerks know how to check out and answer the phone.
___ Our working managers personally know how to do each job they supervise.
___ Staff turnover is low (below 25% per year), so we do not unduly lose the staff we train.
___ Managers and doctors in our practice personally demonstrate patience when they teach.
___ Each department has at least one formally designated, effective trainer.
___ We keep track of who has learned what, so we have a clear road map for continuing education.
___ In addition to written training materials, we use video clips to help reinforce skills development.
___ Our training content strikes the right balance between theory and practical how-to knowledge.
___ Our training accommodates different learning styles and especially includes a lot of hands-on activity.
___ We use excellent outside training materials and visual learning aids.
___ We realize that everyone learns at their own pace; we provide repetition for slower learners.
___ Our training sessions are kept interesting and lively; they are not dull lectures.
___ Staff in every department are formally re-credentialed at least annually.
___ We visit other practices and go to conferences to learn how to do things better.
___ Our doctors train as seriously as staff, attending conferences and keeping up their CE credits and skills.

Total score: ______

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Add up your score. With 20 different attributes, and with up to five points each, there is a maximum score of 100. This summary score can be a valuable internal baseline of your educational efforts and can help point out areas to improve. It might be interesting to repeat this scoring instrument again in a year. As a final — ideally group — exercise, select two or three weaker aspects of your practice’s educational and training efforts that are suggested by your responses to the questions above. For each of these weak areas, write down specific goals and tactics to achieve them.

Mark Twain said: “I never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Rick Ackerly, a former school principal, once wrote: “While schooling jams information into existing mindsets, education maximizes learning that changes mindsets so that the brain is ever more useful to making something of yourself in the world.” As a practice manager or owner, you are in a profoundly unique position to bring Twain’s, Ackerly’s and Senge’s wisdom to life.

For more information:
John B. Pinto is president of J. Pinto & Associates Inc., an ophthalmic practice management consulting firm established in 1979. John is the country’s most-published author on ophthalmology management topics. He is the author of John Pinto’s Little Green Book of Ophthalmology, Turnaround: 21 Weeks to Ophthalmic Practice Survival and Permanent Improvement, Cashflow: The Practical Art of Earning More From Your Ophthalmology Practice, The Efficient Ophthalmologist, The Women of Ophthalmology, Legal Issues in Ophthalmology, Ophthalmic Leadership: A Practical Guide for Physicians, Administrators and Teams and a new book, Simple: The Inner Game of Ophthalmic Practice Success. He can be reached at 619-223-2233; email: pintoinc@aol.com; website: www.pintoinc.com.