Sep
21
Written by:
David Tealby
9/21/2007 1:14 PM
It has been an interesting first few months working for RxWorks in the new Manual Writer position. You may have seen the odd piece from me if you have been really looking for it, but I have been focusing most of my energies on bringing as much RxWorks knowledge as possible to one source.
This has been and continues to be no simple task. RxWorks, always at the forefront of development in this industry, has been setting the pace for some time now and the resultant horde of articles, instructions, manuals and troubleshooting solutions is taking a while to conquer. The end product though, a single source manual for all RxWorks knowledge, is certainly something worth fighting for –no matter how ferociously the individual documents resist assimilation.
A single source reduces confusion. A single source is easier to maintain and it gives users a much surer platform from which to work. I hope you will see improvements flow from this approach to our manuals almost immediately and I am very excited about how much easier it will be for us to help you… and for you to help yourself.
Single Sourcing for You
The single source concept is hardly restricted to the writing of help manuals. The underlying concepts associated with single sourcing run through any quality-assured process. Good veterinary practice management is no different.
Of course, I am no practice management expert and would not presume to tell even a first- day veterinary student how to run a practice. Obviously I write about it a bit in manuals, but I can assure you the tips, tricks and advices I dispense are not mine – I simply act as the “translator” for practice management experts of many years standing.
But I am a bit of an expert on documentation and I do think the lessons from one discipline are worth at least considering when you look to improve another.
So what are some single sourcing concepts that apply to veterinary practice management?
Reliability
The first and most obvious benefit of getting things from one source is that you are getting things from one source. You know what the source is, you know where it is and you know how to use it. You can rely on it being there and for giving you the answers and support you will need. You do not need to waste time searching multiple sources looking for an answer that may not even be there.
Stability
It is important to have multiple sources for ideas, but only confusing and counter-productive to have multiple sources for accepted or proscribed knowledge and processes. A single source gives your staff a standard place to go for their information.
You do not have two people in charge of rosters else you end up with too much or not enough staffing. You do not have two people in charge of ordering else you end up with too much of some things and not enough of others. In the same way, your business and your staff need the stability of one place to go for their information – one place to go for their leadership.
Too many cooks spoil the broth; too many documents sources confound the business.
Version Control
The final benefit is more a control on human nature, but it is perhaps the most important. Multiple sources beget more versions in that, if you give people an option, they will go to different places for the same information, or worse: end up saving their own copies of information and going there. Trying to control versions across multiple sources you know about is hard enough. Trying to do it across sources you do not know is impossible.
Some years ago in a former job (no, not the one Google shows), I had the task of updating company standards. During the process, the worst procedure I came across was six years old and completely illegal and it was being used as CURRENT!!
This was simply because someone had saved it on their hard drive before it became obsolete and, when they moved to management, handed it around to their staff. Fortunately, the whole system was so horribly broken that no one paid any attention to it and I am not aware of anyone breaking the law as a result, but that’s not the sort of safeguard upon which you want to rely.
In your veterinary practice, you can make use of these benefits by having a single source for your own knowledge. You keep all your pet foods together; all your pharmaceutical supplies together. You certainly keep your petty cash in one place. So why would you do anything different with client and patient records, clinic policies or documented medical procedures?
Of course, I have to say that RxWorks can help you with all this and that you can talk to your account manager to find out more, but if you’re read this far, I suspect you knew that anyway. And in any case – single sourcing only works if you make the effort to comply and constantly tidy up any clutter around the edges of your single source. If you don’t, you just end up with lots of single sources… and where’s the point in that? Happy cleaning!
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