This morning, a young mother and two small children came to the office. One of the kids was in a stroller while the other toddler who was quite well behaved, sat quietly while his mom received therapy prior to having an adjustment.

This same scenario plays out all day long both in chiropractic offices as well as medical facilities around the world.

As it is not unusual for children to accompany a parent who is receiving treatment in my office, our staff is particularly careful in monitoring the kids activities especially while around both mechanical and electrical devices.

Both adults and children are naturally inquisitive about instruments and equipment and their operation. I recall being a young adult and while waiting for the dentist to appear often "playing" with gadgets and unknown nobs, while in the dental chair.

Fortunately, I never burned anything with a torch nor caused any specific damage with a drill but...  accidents can and do occur.

It is important to safety proof your office as much as possible and take particular precautions when children are around and not "fully supervised." Take an inventory of your office and implement any thing that you feel will make the facility less vulnerable to an adverse event.

And if an accident does take place-  do you and your staff have a plan and if not I would recommend that one be considered.

Happy days! 

New Doctors who have the pleasure of Associating with well established D.C.'s often have differences of opinion about the way they will run their office once they open or purchase thier own practice. We asked Dr.Z if there was anything he would change or improve in the structure/function/operation of the office he now works in if he had the ability to change it. His reply was one of thought and gratefulness, a sure sign that he's having a great associateship with a professional senior doctor.

"Having only minimal exposure to well-established practices, I would say there is little that could be improved in this efficient place. I do, however, have a suggestion which is a personal preference of mine. I would prefer that patient charts were left in a recepticle outside the adjusting rooms, with the door closed, to give the doctor a chance to review the case (and to see the patient's name) without having the patient watch me thumb my way through the file. In this way, no contatct with the patient is necessary until the doctor is ready to speak to them. The fact that I am unfamiliar with most cases in the office is probably why I feel this way. I've gotten the feeling on many occasions that the patient feels uncomfortable with me if I must "learn" their entire case in the few minutes before I adjust them."

Dr. Z is learning what it takes to make the patient have confidence in him. He doesn't expect to change his whole office, but instead is learning that patient-centered care is what's important.

Whether you are just now moving into your college clinic, recently established a new practice or just beginning a new associateship, do you have a small tip you'd share concerning making a practice "your own?"

Every day there is another incident where the lines cross between professional and social relationships.  The blurring of boundaries is creating a huge issue in law and medicine.

The innocent violations of HIPAA, confidentiality, Protected Health Information (PHI) and a host of other breaches of confidentiality are almost too numerous to mention. 

While it may seem unlikely that we will go back to a world without Facebook,Twitter or LinkedIn, it is increasingly more difficult to escape from the horrors of early lapses in judgment that occurred during a moment of euphoria which clouds long-term judgment.

• Employers are increasingly going on Google searches with prospective employees or associates.
• Board of examiners and malpractice attorneys are looking up clients on these social networks.
• Patients and prospective patients are turning to social networking to look up their doctor and often uncover unprofessional photos and comments that can never be erased from the web.

Doctors can avoid these problems by discussing patient/doctor, patient/staff and doctor/patient boundary issues ... and by emphasizing the importance of privacy, confidentiality and adherence to HIPAA rules and regulations. 

The waters of the virtual world are turbulent and can create significant problems for the unsuspecting.

It was clear at this point in our conversation that Dr. Z had ideas about getting involved in community organizations and networking with local businesses.  But how does this translate into new patients in the practice?

Dr. Z plans to leverage the contacts he makes within the community.  He is going to focus on groups that have not had interactions with the practice in the past and join organizations with members he doesn't know and are not already patients.

You see, the thing is, Dr. Z needs to be the point of contact for the patient.  It factors into his compensation whether the patient is his or not and if they came to the practice through his efforts.  So keeping track of where the patients heard about the practice is really important.

Clearly, community involvement is an important component of Dr. Z's marketing plan.  But I asked if it was important for him to be involved in organizations in which he had a passion for the organization's mission.

This gave Dr. Z pause.  I'm not sure he had thought of that aspect of it.  "I guess I need to think about that.  I've been thinking about this from my perspective and not from the perspective of the organization and the other volunteers involved."

We talked about this for a bit and I shared my perspective as a volunteer leader with a few non-profit organizations in my community.  I told him that if he is not sincere in his motives he will likely not put in the effort expected by others involved.  Also, if he finds organizations he has a genuine interest in, it will be less like work and more productive.

I think this was a good lesson for Dr. Z.  I know from my experience, if a volunteer is only involved to promote their business, the volunteers like me who are genuine about the mission will be resentful and insulted....and not very likely to be supportive of the business being promoted in the first place.

Dr. Z thought for a moment and replied "I never thought about it like that, but that does give me another way to think about my involvement."