Walk the Doc: Episode #4

Walk the Doc 4. Brought to you by the Modern Nose Clinic.

In this episode, Dr. Skarada drives his car to work and discusses a little bit more about the vision.

The "Walk with the Doc" is gonna start with some – how about "Drive with the Doc?" So here I am, driving to work. And I just was thinking as I was driving to work that we have got an exceptional team of people at the Modern Nose Clinic, and they need to be inspired. They need to look for something that's worth working for. And what's working for is that medicine is broken. And I said that I talked about why medicine is broken or top-of-the-pyramid organization so on and so forth.

Coffee; I brew it. Nothing fancy, but I like to put a thick cream in it, and I think it's lovely. Anyway, so I'm driving to work here. Medicine's broken because the patient experience is not good. Our society has spent a lot for medicine, and we're not getting very much in return. Yes, there are some individuals at every level of an organization that are doing a fantastic job. There could be a person in the reception team who's answering the phone really well, and they're very friendly and they welcome people perfectly. There could be a medical assistant who is particularly motivated, and they want to do a great job. And so every time they see someone, there's a big smile, and they really engage them. They explain things. They take ownership. And there could be a provider who just loves being a physician. They feel like it's a gift, and they're grateful every time a patient shows up to see them. But unless they're all together, then the whole experience is ruined. It's like going to Disney World, and the ride's good but everything else is terrible. So any one of those things will ruin the overall patient experience, and that is the challenge. That is what we need to do.

We need to come up with a clinic, a process, a system – care. We have three lines of care that is exceptional from beginning to end. And – where you look at every little piece of it wanting it to be better every week. At the end of the week, it's better than it was the beginning of the week, and that is what we're doing. And with everyone in the organization, all of y'all square pegs with me, we're gonna put together something we're really gonna be proud of, but the thing about it is we're making it scalable. So in other words, it's not just gonna be here in Salem, it's gonna also be up in Lake Oswego or Tualatin or Beaverton or Paris or New York because everybody wants the same experience. Everybody's paying a lot of money. For what? For something not so good because no one's pulling it together, and that's what we want to do. So that's the vision, in a nutshell. I'm signing off.

So. Medicine's broken. I think that we wouldn't really argue about that. We want an exceptional experience. We want something like – you're gonna go to Disneyland. You saved up money. Your family is so excited. You've talked about it for weeks. You go there. You're paying a lot of money to get into the park, and you're gonna – you just wanna have a lovely experience. You want to remember about it – remember it and talk about it. Medicine. We don't want patients to see doctors over and over again. We want to fix them. So that's fundamental. We want to actually fix our patients. Crazy! And the problem with medicine is that people aren't accountable, so that receptionist who's exceptional – and our center stage is exceptional! All those square pegs! The MA who's fantastic. That physician who really cares. None of them are rewarded for that. That's just the way they are, and we need to create a home for them to come to. When they come to the Modern Nose Clinic – one of our locations anywhere in the country – when they come to work with us, the whole team's gonna work together, and we're gonna deliver that experience like Disneyland does – or Disneyworld, depending on where you live.

So yeah, that world-class experience where we want to get better every week. And the thing about it is that you say, "Well, Dr. Skarada, how do you make people accountable?" Oh, we've got plans for all this; it's part of our business model, and we're gonna familiarize you with it over time. But that's why all the numbers and the metrics that overtime in the next three to six months each of you all – we're gonna ask you, and we're gonna kind of brainstorm what your metrics are. And metrics are basically something that you believe reflects your hard work because we know you guys are the best team members at each position that I've ever worked with. And we think that people are high performers – are not afraid to be measured, and we think that – you know – if we come up with numbers that you believe in, and you say yeah that's a number that reflects how hard I'm working.

But these metrics will be something that's gonna be worked into the system. I have it figured out in my head; I think it's beyond the scope of this conversation today. Today. A little bit top of the pyramid – that Maslow's pyramid that we convert it into our own little thing – our employees don't want ceilings. We don't like ceilings. We want to learn and learn and learn. We want to be better over time. We don't want to say, "Oh, all I do is I check people in." No! There's gonna be more and more that you could do if you'd like to. As an MA, "Oh, I want to actually help with surgery. I want to be in the OR. I want to create an operating room." That's pretty amazing, and as a physician, well we need to create a special space for you all. And I'm hoping that over time as we're recruiting the very best physicians possible, that some of y'all might watch some of these videos to get an idea of what we're thinking about – to see if this is your vision, also. But we want to do is take that superstar – whatever you want to say – LeBron James, and surround him by a team of people who can get him the ball or her the ball, so they can make that shot. We want exceptional people, and we want to build a system that helps you to be your best.

So. And in a nutshell, our vision is to try to solve medicine, and we're going to do it by providing an exceptional experience. We are mindful of cost, and we are, as it turns out, the least expensive ear nose and throat group in the state, as I know it right now. Everything we do here is the least expensive yet we would like to offer the very best care. And we want people to feel – employees to feel rewarded and thanked. We want you to be accountable because high performers want to be accountable.

So. Basically, for the Walk with the Doc this week, talking a little bit about the vision, how medicine is broken, what we want to do, and it's gonna get more granular as we go on. We just can only do so much with each of these little video clips. And – you know – at weekly intervals over time you're gonna feel like you understand better and better where we're going and what we're up to. Doug Skarada, medical director of Modern Nose Clinic. A Drive with the Doc, today. And thank you for those – whatever it is – 16 of you or 20 of you who have been watching these videos. Certainly from my own team. Grateful for that, and anyone else who wants to watch. Come along for the ride. You can see how we're gonna build the next-generation clinic. Signing off Doug Skarada.