Hear Ye, Hear Ye! It looks like it’s time to muster the troops and expound upon a worthy virtue! The subject of the day is the old adage—“Silence is golden.” An adage, of course, is a simple truth. And the truth of the matter is, the front desk can be more effective with phone scheduling and recalls if the rest of the staff “tread a little lighter” and keep noise and distraction down when approaching the front desk.
There are a number of things that could distract Front Desk personnel, though it might not seem so to others approaching that area. Examples of situations that should be handled differently are:
- Personal conversations at, or around, hearing distance of the front desk.
- Technical and any other staff member hanging out at the front desk when waiting for patients or for any other reason. They should wait elsewhere.
- Any staff member, whether administrative or technical, going to the front desk to ask questions and hanging out to procure information that could really have been gotten through regular communication lines, such as staff mail boxes or emails.
- Staff borrowing supplies like stapler, pens, paper clips, etc. from the front desk. These should be obtained elsewhere.
- Technical staff getting together in earshot of the front desk and getting very loud when talking, or talking about things that patients really don’t need to hear, even when it does not directly involve them.
- Technical staff filling out their charts at the front desk. This should be done in their own rooms or the DA lab.
- Staff, technical staff in particular, not having patients and making personal phone calls and tying up lines, thus causing the front desk to have to wait for a line out to make a call. There is a policy about personal calls.
IT IS EVERYONE’S RESPONSIBILTY TO SEE THAT THIS POLICY IS FOLLOWED!
I’m sure every staff member has some task they do that they need to concentrate in order to a good job. Some people need to concentrate more than others at specific times. In the case of scheduling and recall, conversations with some patients are tedious, and distractions kill concentration. We all benefit when the front desk is operating at optimum efficiency, and all factors that affect that efficiency have been reviewed. This noise and distraction in all its variations is coming up as something that’s needs to be handled.
All staff members are expected to assist with this. This policy should not be shunned. It definitely is not intended to reduce any attention that should be given to a patient, and its purpose is not to stifle friendless or spontaneity. Enjoy yourselves. Just quit interrupting the front desk, as well as other administrative areas.