Creating Your Own Standard Operating Procedures
Standard Operating Procedures (aka SOPs) go far beyond your employee office manual and job descriptions. You need them to establish office guidelines and acceptable practices, and act as a permanent “to-do” list for everyone. Have you ever been driven crazy by a co-worker or employee that doesn’t know what to do and when to do it? It might also feel like there are tasks that either never get done or there is a battle over who is supposed to do them. The bottom line is that when you establish a protocol, it’s much more likely to be honored if it’s written down.
This article will walk you through creating your own set of SOPs. If you are not up for the task, you can purchase them from a company and then tailor them to the specific needs of your office. Personally, I like having the office do it as a team – you can make it fun and your team will feel like they are a part of office history. In addition, it can help your staff to feel like they have a “voice” in the office.
What you will need: Binders with dividers, brain-storming/meeting time, giant post-it notes with non-bleed markers (I like these: http://amzn.to/2bNg2dF), a timeline, and food.
After you have the necessary supplies, schedule an initial team meeting and talk about the project at hand. Be careful about how you approach the subject, though. The key is to keep it from feeling like a punishment or the result of something bad that happened. Having SOPs means less questioning about the who, when, why and where, but involving the entire team makes them feel as though they are contributing to the betterment of the office.
During your first brain-storming session, divide the office into departments, as best as you can. Use your giant post-it notes and have everyone from each department take turns writing. You probably won’t finish the entire project in one sitting so once you are done with your initial meeting, you want to move the post-it notes to place in the office where team members can write on them throughout the day or when they have downtime.
Sometimes the best ideas come during an “issue”, so providing the ability to make a note of a situation could ultimately help establish SOPs that may not have been thought of earlier.
Between team meetings, set a goal for each department to add at least one more page of SOPs. They will start to look like a step-by-step instruction manual. For example, the SOPs for sterilization opening procedures might read similar to this: 1. Turn on autoclave and check water level. 2. Check calendar for any maintenance due on equipment. 3 Put away clean, bagged instruments from day before.
If it seems tedious, it is! But the work is worth it in the end.
It is imperative to give the team an end date. If you have a doctor going on vacation and there is extensive downtime, it is possible you can finish this project in just a few weeks or less, but without being able to give it uninterrupted attention, this could take up to 3-4 months. Once you feel the list is comprehensive enough to make official, the SOPs will need to be typed and put into binders.
Use your discretion on how to divide the binder. You can divide it up into Opening Duties, Seating a Patient, Processing Instruments… etc.
Once you have the final product, have a catered party! This is a big accomplishment! Now don’t file them away and never look at them again – keep them handy at all times. Your SOPs are a very powerful tool. Here is how to use them:
- Onboarding/Orientation of new employees: In previous articles, I’ve actually written about using SOPs to prevent turnover. If you’ve ever worked for a big corporation, you will know that at some point you sit down to an orientation at which your job duties, expectations and a whole other load of information is presented to you. Ideally you know what you are getting into at this point.
- Performance Problems and Reviews: Here is your checklist of items to base reviews on. You now have a solid list of duties and actions to hold the team accountable for. If they are not performing as expected, you can use your SOPs as a reference.
SOPs will change and evolve over time, especially when you change a program or add services to the mix. If you all of a sudden buy a program to help with patient flow, you will need to alter the existing protocol and add new ones. There is no shame in using the companies’ instruction sheets to supplement you written protocol either. They are often given to you as a part of training and already provide step-by-step instructions.
I can’t stress enough the importance of having a reasonable deadline and sticking to it. This is one of those projects that may lose steam if you don’t make it a part of your daily and weekly routines. If it helps, google SOPs and look at examples on the Internet. This way you will have an idea of what the end result will look like. Talk about it every day with your team at morning huddles and reserve time for it at every single team meeting. The work will be worth it!
Bridget Fay, BBA
Senior Consultant
Odyssey Management
www.odysseymgmt.com