A productivity miracle

From time to time people say to me “I followed your advice”.

This sometimes makes me a little nervous because I’m never sure if they are going to tell me how well it went or if it was a disaster.

This story from a dentist arrived in my inbox recently.

The dentist in question works in a pretty standard configuration with just 1 chair-side nurse. The dentist’s productivity is not bad, not good, just ordinary.

On a day recently the OHT rang in sick.

Instead of cancelling the patients and rescheduling the dentist decided to see them all.

The key thing they had going in their favour was that the nurse who normally worked with the OHT would be helping the dentist.

That is the dentist would have two nurses instead of one.

Long story short, this happened…

The day ran well and all the patients got seen on time. That is the dentist not only covered their schedule but also saw a full day of patients who were booked with the OHT.

To use the dentist’s own words: “…we blitzed it.”

You might ask, how can that possibly happen?

Here’s the answer.

I’ve watched dentists work and with one nurse, dentists are typically working with patients 50% of the time and waiting for things to get ready 50% of the time.

With two nurses, dentists are typically working with patients 90% of the time and waiting for things to get ready 10% of the time.

In effect an extra nurse gives a dentist an additional 3-4 productive hours per day. It’s the sort of thing you need to experience to fully appreciate.