by Tiffany Killion-Consalvo, CVPM
We can agree that inadequate communication and lack of collaboration waste a lot of money. We’ve got to start looking at new ways of doing things in our practices, in order to streamline our processes and increase our productivity. Save your company money by investing time in technology solutions that increase communication and teamwork.
Problem #1: Collaborating on a Project
You, along with 3 of your teammates, are working on a monthly marketing campaign for your hospital. You meet to discuss the campaign and independently work on different items. Throughout the week you want to share your progress with the rest of the team. You currently send an attachment through email but it gets difficult to know which document was edited last and the entire process becomes time consuming. Not to mention if you read Brenda’s Email Challenge you may be in streamlining mode and not looking to your email as a way to increase your productivity.
Solution: Dropbox
Download dropbox to your computer. Create a file folder and share it with the rest of your marketing team. Your team will be able to save the file you are collaborating on in the shared folder and you will be notified when the file is updated. You can access your dropbox files from any computer making it easier to access the file.
Problem #2: Project Management
You and your management team just left a fantastic meeting with the HTC team. Every team member has an assignment and a deadline. You and your team have a full day of appointments and surgery after the meeting. A few days pass before you are able to work on your assignments. You scramble to pull out your notes with all of your to-do’s and piece together the information.
Solution: Asana
Have your team sign up for a free Asana account. Asana allows you to create projects and to-do lists. You can assign team members to tasks and keep projects well organized with deadlines. You can sign into your Asana account through email on your computer, iPad or smart phone.
Problem #3: Marketing to Your Team
You have a great marketing team but getting all of the marketing information out to the entire hospital in a timely manner has been impossible. Your team is now frustrated because clients are asking them questions about your blogs that they are unprepared for.
Solution: Team Newsletters
If you use WordPress as your website platform, download the Wysija Newsletters plugin to your site (it’s free!). Create a list that only includes your hospital team members as subscribers. You can quickly select all of your posts that you want to share with your team and imbed them into your newsletter. You can include any text information that enhances the information so your team is prepared and ready to answer any client questions that come their way.
Communication is fundamental to accomplishing anything, but most especially when working in a team environment. Give these solutions a chance, and let us know how your team responds! If you have other technology tips to enhance communication, we’d love it if you shared them below in the comments section.