Dry eyes are a very acute eye condition that can aggravate with time. Patients suffering from dry eyes find it very difficult to manage without proper treatment. Chronic dry eyes are a condition when the tear glands do not produce enough tears. Some people also experience temporary dry eyes. This issue occurs mainly due to environmental factors. When you are setting up a dry eye clinic, you are committing to resolving this issue. No institution can establish in a single day even with a catchy name or highly-qualified personnel.
So, what do you need to develop a dry eye clinic? When you begin your clinic, you can expect dry eye patients to discover and queue at your reception desk. You must provide a clear commitment to treating your patients with full care. Moreover, you need to develop a practice that must be followed by all the doctors and staff. Adhering to the protocols will help you build uniformity in the clinic.
Managing a Dry Eye Clinic:
A clinic is just like an organization packed with all types of resources. However, being equipped is not enough in any case. It would be best if you manage your front desk and back-office network. Your patients must not feel uncomfortable from the time they come in and walk out of your main door. So, it would help if you get people and network devices.
1. Basic Amenities
Make sure to keep your dry eye clinic loaded with all necessary facilities like drinking water, washrooms, seating area, creche, etc. However, it is up to you to add some more decors or amenities.
2. Examination Rooms and Labs
These are critical to treating dry eye patients. Labs need to be well equipped with modern instruments for testing samples of the patients and provide results.
3. Medicinal Stocks
While dry eye clinic must have medicines for doctor’s purpose or lab requisites, you can also keep prescription medicines for your patients. So, they do not need to go and check for pharmaceuticals for their medicines. So, it will become a stop treatment center.
4. Effective Appointment Scheduling
We are technology people and love using it. It is the mantra that you must incorporate in your dry eye clinic. No one will call to book an appointment if they have better access to online scheduling. However, depending too much on technology may not be a great idea. So, it would be best if you kept both options in place.
5. Waiting Time
No one likes to wait, especially when you are already suffering. Dry eye patients require quick actions. So, it would be best if you reduce the waiting time for them. Make sure that your dry eye doctor has sufficient time to examine the patient and prescribe them. Define a time slot for every doctor-patient interaction. Scheduling time slots with appointments help the patients as well as doctors to manage their time effectively.
Apart from all this, it would be best if you also focused on customer support. Your staff should be positive in helping out the patients. Many clinics have adopted the customer relationship management system to keep in touch with their patients, maintain records of past visits, schedule routine checks, medical history, and many more. It has proven to be a very effective way to engage your patients and treating them. The follow-ups and constant engagement will help you earn their loyalty.
Furthermore, keep on upgrading your system and keep it process-driven. The more seamless the process is, the effective it becomes for the people to manage it. Find new technology for your dry eye clinic and implement it sincerely. You can also enlist your clinic to be a part of the dry eye organization for more visibility to the patients.
