Find misplaced items in your practice

Don't you hate it when you ask a team member for an instrument or client handout and you get a blank look? Here's how I fixed this.

First, I asked doctors and team members to give me a list of items we don't use every day, or always seem to elicit an "I dunno" when a doctor asks where it is. Then, when it's slow, I hold a scavenger hunt.

I set up a box of goodies and a poster with the items listed on it, and we start the hunt. When team members find an item, they mark it off the board, set down the item, and grab a goodie. Then they're off for more.

When everything is marked off the list, we all walk around the practice to put things back and remind ourselves where the items are kept and what they're called.

Now our doctors are happier, and our patients receive better care because we aren't calling missing team members on the phone to ask, "Where's the ... ?"

—Donna Bauman, CVPM, practice manager, Ottawa Animal Hospital, Holland, Mich., and owner of Visions Consulting