This seems like a weird situation where standardizing a way of doing things across a business can help lead to innovation and more creativity? But this is exactly how we have worked in our practice for almost 20 years. This has led to very fast and substantial innovation across multiple practices and with the input of many staff.
How does standardization lead to innovation?
I first came across this concept after reading The Toyota Way and Michael Gerber’s E-Myth. What amazed me was reading about how Toyota was able to change a production line so that they could produce a particular car model, e.g. Corolla and then change the tooling to produce a Camry in around a minute. This is a complicated mechanic process and system, yet was able to be flexible enough to change so fast. How?
The key was standardizing each element of the production process so that everyone on the assembly line knows how to do each job the same way each time. More importantly, everyone else in the production area knows how each job will be done by every other staff member and the output of every other person’s work every time. The biggest outcome of this process is trust in your fellow work mates and the quality of the output they will produce, which makes a better whole.
But how does this apply to a service-based business like our allied health business?
In the case of services, it applies even more so because unlike a manufacturing production line, the process is even more likely to be variable and is dependent on not only the practitioner but the patient as well.
In our practice, the process of standardization began with our assessment process. In order to be confident in the outcome of an assessment performed by different practitioners or even the same practitioner testing clients over time, the testing process needs to be as consistent as possible and the results of those tests needs to give fairly consistent diagnosis. For example, when doing a lumbar assessment, we started with the McKenzie assessment process. By no means is it perfect, but it’s consistent and each practitioner can be confident that an assessment performed by them or another staff member will give similar results.
However, we didn’t stop there. We looked at other components that would either add to or improve the effectiveness of the assessment process. Over time, we added assessment of the core stability muscles, transversus abdominus and multifidus to the assessment as it guided which muscle groups we needed to work on and which would lead to the most effective change for the patient. Because we were all testing the same thing and could see the outcome of the process, all staff members could contribute to improving and changing the process based on the client outcomes, leading to better and better results over time.
Where does innovation come into it?
Because the process is very consistent between practitioners, the effect of change can be seen very rapidly by each staff member and iterated on a very fast basis.
For example, recently, one of our senior Accredited Exercise Physiologists had studied additional method of testing and treating lower back problems via the McGill method. If he was the only one with the knowledge, he would be the “mysterious” black box of knowledge that would process new outcomes, but no one would understand how and why.
Instead, by pulling apart the new learnings, understanding why each new test is added and how it effects the diagnosis or outcome, we all have a good understanding of the new process and why we do it.
More importantly, we all get to field test the new procedures are the same time. Everyone has an impact on keeping the things that work, eliminating the things that don’t and changing the things that need improving. Change is very fast and implemented across the practices in a very short period of time in a robust and effective way.
What about creativity?
There is always room for innovation and being creative, but the key is not to keep it to yourself.
We have a few staff members who are “super” creative. They will come up with ideas that are “out of the box” and get a huge “wow” reaction from the other practitioners. However, if the process stopped there it would be a wasted opportunity. The key is to bring these “creative solutions” to the team and get everyone to try them. Again, we get to see what works, what doesn’t and what can be improved.
As a result, all the staff members and the patients get the benefit of staff member’s creativity without the “magic” being locked into the knowledge of only one practitioner and being tested by one person alone.
Training and new learning are treated the same way. When a staff member goes for training or does a new course, it is not enough for them to keep the knowledge for themselves. They need to present the material to all the other staff and together as a group we will determine what we need to add to what we do, change what we do or improve on our current process.
In addition, the new knowledge is field tested very fast and we go back to improve the process after implementation so the finished process is much more robust and effective than just blindly accepting new knowledge without knowing whether it is better or worse than our current processes and procedures.
Join the discussion and have your say?
- Comment below!
- Call us on (03) 9857 0644 or (07) 3505 1494 (Paddington)
- Email us at admin@mdhealth.com.au
- Check out our other Health Business blog posts here
Our clinical staff would be happy to have chat if you have any questions.
