How To Be Your Patients' Dream Hygienist by Dru Halverson, RDH, BA

You try each day to be your best, but who really defines your success? You? Other members of the dental team? The dentist or dentists? Spend a moment with me to consider how to be not only a good hygienist, but the dream hygienist through the eyes of your patients. After all, their trust in you may make all the difference in your success and the success of your practice!

A good hygienist comes in and takes care of the patients in the same way, following an always similar flow of the appointment and focusing on verbal conversations resembling social graces more than anything actually hygiene or dentistry related. But I'm not challenging you to be a good hygienist. I'm challenging you to be the patient's dream hygienist.

Now, don't misunderstand. At Jameson, we address the 25 systems within a dental practice and help practices fine tune those systems into a smooth flowing day for profitability, productivity and stress control, so we obviously believe in proven routines and measurable systems just like many good hygienists out there. But sometimes being a dream hygienist means taking things to a whole new level - breaking from the old habits and starting fresh to focus more intently on your goals.

Dream hygienists will add technology, ask questions and get real answers from patients who feel truly heard, review new treatment in the hygiene arena and in the other areas of the practice. It's difficult to differentiate good hygienists from dream hygienists but if you live an entire week of normal scheduling asking yourself which you were after each appointment, you'll start to identify small differences and altered choices that have you getting closer to dreamy with each passing day!

Patients will tell you that a dream hygienist is:

• A caring listener that makes me feel understood,
• A persistent accountability partner that will keep me on track toward my health and appearance goals,
• A knowledgeable expert that shares information with me about my current health status,
• Healthy, with strong, high health beliefs and standards, and
• Committed to my care and sincerely interested in offering the ideal care for my comfort and health so I don't have to dread appointments.

Dentists will tell you that a dream hygienist is:

• Always moving forward, advancing, progressing, learning and growing,
• A team player interested in more than the hygiene department,
• Willing to focus on the patient's ultimate dental health and support ideal care of the patient no matter what, and
• Excited about achieving measurable success regarding profitability and productivity.

So, after more than 20 years in the industry working with thousands of practices worldwide, if I were to summarize the factors of being a patient's dream hygienist, I'd have to quote Jameson Founder, Cathy Jameson, and say that "Communication is the Bottom Line to Success". When your patient feels truly heard, sees you and your colleagues working as a team for their ideal care in every aspect of dentistry, and using technology to streamline your systems and offer that ideal care, you will be their dream hygienist.

In summary, I encourage you to take some time out and challenge the WHO's and WHAT's that define hygiene success. Dare yourself to think through each day from the patient's perspective with teamwork, communication, technology and expertise as your grading standards. Listen, care, work with your team, and be their experts!

To take the first step toward boosting your hygiene department's productivity, take our complimentary Hygiene Profitability Boost Analysis today at www.jamesonmanagement.com/hygiene.