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Provide Staff With Clinical Training

Give your employees the tools to effectively communicate with patients.

TRUDI CHAREST, RO, ABO

Understanding basic clinical information on eye health enables your employees to deliver enhanced patient care. An optometric staff is responsible for a variety of tasks, such as scheduling appointments and assisting in testing, which requires some clinical knowledge to best perform their job.

To ensure employees are capable of doing these jobs, you must develop a training system. Employees who are well trained and grow in their careers are happier, more motivated and stay at their jobs longer vs. those who are not. Also, training ensures employees convey correct information to patients vs. what they think they know or believe.

The training areas to cover:

Anatomy and terminology

This education is especially important for pre-testers who discuss procedures and equipment with patients.

Keep training simple by showing staff basic diagrams of the parts of the eye they most commonly describe to patients. You can include a full description of each part in the diagram, but I recommend going over the details in a staff meeting. I’ve found the information is more memorable when presented in person.

Eye disease and treatment

Your staff needs an understanding of basic eye disease to explain the importance of ongoing eye health assessments, not just refraction, to patients.

Review the eye diseases you commonly handle, including a basic explanation of how you treat them. This could include cataracts, glaucoma, dry eye and floaters. Do this individually or in a meeting to ensure staff has knowledge on basic eye disease.

Sorting patients

Once front desk staff has clinical knowledge, it is their responsibility to use the information provided by patients to schedule an appointment or take the information to you.

Develop a list of common eye injuries and complaints, and list your recommended action for each. This allows staff to explain the appropriate method of care in each situation. To assist with this process, create a triage form they fill out when talking to patients via phone. This should include probing questions such as:

▸ Are you noticing any changes or concerns with your vision? When did it start, and is it continuous?

If the patient requires a referral, make sure your staff knows how to explain why the referral is needed, what the specialist does, timelines and how the referral impacts follow-up care in your practice.

Staff members who have a basic understanding of clinical protocols are better prepared for phone triage, which prevents costly mistakes or unnecessary appointments or referrals.

Better suited for the job

Though training staff takes time and effort, the pay off is huge. Patients feel more educated and better served, which equals a high quality experience and, therefore, retention. OM

TRUDI CHAREST IS THE PRESIDENT AND TRAINER FOR TOTAL FOCUS TRAINING & CONSULTING, AS WELL AS PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER OF JOBS4ECPS, AN ONLINE EYECARE JOB SITE. SEND COMMENTS TO OPTOMETRICMANAGEMENT@GMAIL.COM.