“To me there is nothing more critical than engaging our 120 talented dentists in creating an extraordinary, patient-focused practice. By implementing the NOW Management System we have achieved across-the-board results beyond anything we had imagined.” — CEO and Dental Director

Client: One of the largest group dental practices in the U.S. with 120 dentists, 16 offices and 180,000 patients.

Need:  A newly elected CEO and Dental Program Director had been with the organization for 17 years as a General Dentist.  Beforehand he was responsible for dental treatment and had modest involvement with operations.

He wanted to expose patient-facing processes and make improvements so that the practice lived up to its values and become the national leader.  He learned that the staff gathered measurements, yet there was not a structure that allowed senior managers to see organizational performance and highlight problems.  He was not sure how to sustain their financial performance and to efficiently grow without a better management system.  Plus, the Board had taken on a strong decision making and operational role before the new CEO was elected.  Since they were all practicing dentists, the board had very limited time and accessing them was difficult.  So the organization suffered from ineffective decision making and the board had little time for growth strategies.

Lastly, the new CEO knew they had great dentists and support staff.  He also knew they were not sufficiently engaging and leveraging their talents—a significant missed opportunity to gain a competitive advantage.

Project Goals

• Gather accurate baseline data on organizational performance
• Make operations and process innovation opportunities transparent and actionable to all employees
• Increase employee accountability and engagement
• Provide managers with accurate and timely data that enabled better decision making
• Create a robust visual map of core processes, inter-dependencies, process owners and transparent metrics

NOW Solution

The CEO and Board engaged Mass Ingenuity to provide the following services and deliverables:

• Guided creation of a shared Vision and Strategic Plan
• Build a visual Management System including:

o   Process inter-dependencies, handoffs, deliverables, waste, constraints, process owners and metrics

o   Quarterly business review process, root cause analysis process, tools and skill development

• Instituted a system for managing breakthrough initiatives critical to the group’s strategic plan
• Reduced waste and focused employee and manager energy on the fixes that mattered most
• Improved employee recognition so desired behavior and results were reinforced and engagement increased

Client Results

• Overall employee engagement increased 21% over three years
• Highest patient satisfaction in the program’s history
• Five consecutive quarters of strong patient appointment availability (best in its history)
• Director reported feeling a stronger knowledge of the operations, actual performance and key future goals
• Strong financial performance despite a very challenging economic recession