In his book “Blink,” Malcolm Gladwell describes how we “think without thinking:” how we make choices in the blink of an eye that really are not as simple as they seem and that are nearly impossible to explain to others. In a similar vein, we are often told to “trust our gut” when making business or even patient care decisions. There is a lot of evidence to support the success of those snap decisions, but there is a major caveat. The ability to consistently make the right decision in an instant is kind of a mirage. Let me explain. 

Context is critical here. There is an awful lot of education that goes into those snap decisions. The examples he cites in the book are impressive, but the people making those decisions are immersed in the environment, are considered experts in their fields, and have lots of practical experience. You can’t take a person without those attributes and have the level of confidence in those snap decisions as you can in those of an established professional. Assuming you have been a clinician for more than a few years, imagine a brand new patient coming to your practice for the first time. You are standing in your waiting area and notice a person walking to your office. Before they even open your door, I’ll bet you have analyzed their gait and have an idea of what you would do to fix it! But if you are brand new to the field, you may have noticed some abnormalities in the gait, but you are going to be more inclined to objectively quantify the abnormalities you see before you decide what you would do to fix them.  

In business, even though we have been successful for a while, we are feeling new stresses. The environment has changed so there is a greater need to objectify your observations. You may have an idea about what to do, but objective information can give you the confidence to move forward with your plan. One objective measure is the volume of new prescriptions you are getting. As you look at those numbers, it is the trends you observe that really matter. What does your overall new prescription trend look like? How does it compare to a year ago? Are there patterns? How many of your new prescriptions are for new patients as opposed to existing patients? What percent of them are prosthetic vs. orthotic? What are your goals for that ratio? Based on what you are seeing and any patterns you have observed, is there any strategy you should implement? Hire more staff? Increase your outreach?  

What percentage of your new prescriptions actually turn into deliveries? What can you do to increase that percentage? The data you need to answer these questions is contained in the OPIE Business Intelligence dashboards. Next Wednesday, August 16th, and monthly thereafter, I will be reviewing the Executive Dashboard for a 30-minute-deep dive into a single key metric. Please register here to join me as we work through your data and learn from it.