Don’t Be Busy. Be Productive. | Endodontics SuperSystems

Do you remember those transformative moments when technology changed everything?

All of us as individuals, and most industries we might be part of, have had our daily lives forever changed by an advancement in how we perform a task or understand data about ourselves or our work. These shifts have made such a difference that we haven’t looked back. Life before that technology might as well be the Dark Ages.

Along with our Macs or PCs, Microsoft 365 and G Suite have changed how we write and process words and data. Salesforce has altered how companies track and manage their sales activities. Fitbits and Apple Watches have invited us to track and improve our health and fitness.

They made us better, more efficient, even healthier. 

Now that kind of transformation is a reality for the daily experience of practices led by highly trained service professionals such as dentists, doctors, and lawyers. 

Endodontics SuperSystems (ESS) combines best practices in business management and process mapping with software innovation that changes how work is performed and how productivity is understood. It allows owners, managers, and team members to take ownership of their roles and responsibilities within a practice.

ESS is a Software as a Service (SaaS) tool that enables everyone engaged in a practice to focus on four stages:

1. Learn
2. Do
3. Inspire
4. Plan

ESS founder Dr. Christopher Sabourin came up with this structure while running a successful dental practice in California’s Central Valley. Against the formidable odds of small business failure, he built two locations with 15 employees and $2.84 million in annual revenue. His practice, ranked in the top 0.1% of its type, has a consistently high patient rating.

He knew that process was what made his business work. Because 73% of a given business is vulnerable to broken processes, ineffective processes can be a fatal flaw no matter how hard-working the service entrepreneur or how well-intentioned the team.

About four years ago, he set out on an R&D process with mapping and software experts to standardize the processes that made his and similarly qualified businesses successful. He called the result “Practice DNA.” Dr. Sabourin and his team combined the framework with a cutting-edge platform to create a changemaker for dental and medical practices.

The resulting Endodontics SuperSystems platform recently made its debut.

1. Learn

It can take months, if not longer, for a practice’s new team members to learn their roles. Training and retention are among the costliest elements of running a business - finding, training, and unfortunately sometimes losing staff who aren’t effectively trained and accordingly don’t feel comfortable or perform well in their role. That’s why the ESS platform emphasizes learning. But not all Learning Management Systems are created equal. 

ESS is equipped to virtually connect and train staff for businesses that have multiple locations, while easily facilitating access and observation to management. It provides account logins - and different levels of “view” permissions - for team members to learn, and for management and ownership to engage and evaluate. Most new hires learn best through interactive, gamified content and that’s exactly the approach ESS takes. Using cutting-edge technology such as virtual reality (VR) and alternate reality (AR), staff can virtually “attend” a training session facilitated by a leader in a different office location - while in a full-fledged replica of the office! In addition, team members completing learning modules and updated certifications will receive rewards and badges for their accomplishments. Office managers and owners, at the same time, will be able to track progress in real time, reward success, and engage if any staff are struggling.

1. Do

Of course, the heart of a practice is in completing tasks and serving patients and clients. The ESS platform not only helps team members effectively complete tasks according to proven process mapping, but it also fosters accountability in how long it takes staff to perform certain functions. With their “operating view,” an office manager or business owner can use this data to identify bottlenecks and take ownership of weak points in their practice before they become a serious issue. As Dr. Sabourin likes to say, “go from being busy to being productive.” The goal isn’t for staff to have a day where they feel intensely busy at every moment - the larger impact that ESS has is in encouraging a productive mindset and using technology to guide teams into a productive flow. 

Access to practice appointment calendars, a time-tracking clock, and even online operatory views helps users at all levels of a business achieve this comfortable productivity. The result is improvement of the experience for all members of the practice team, and the additional benefit of passing efficiencies along to clients and patients who will pick up on the sense of confidence and lack of stress within the team.

1. Inspire

As any leader knows, no team works well without a sense of inspiration. In addition to providing connection and learning to staff members spread across offices, ESS facilitates the sharing of virtual encouragement and reminders of the business’ mission. Some business owners using ESS have engaged the platform to remind staff of the core principles of the practice upon each login - to great effect. While one-on-one encouragement and feedback remains meaningful and important for businesses, teams are now used to engaging with software tools (especially enjoyable virtual ones!) as part of the employee experience. In the same way that so many of us rely on G Suite or Fitbits in our lives, teams increasingly expect and rely upon interfacing with software to meet expectations, do their jobs well, and be rewarded.

1. Plan

The foundational principles of ESS go back to business process mapping, as we mentioned above. With access to the standardized process maps from practices in the top 0.1% in the nation, and access to individual business data, practice owners can plan and adjust effectively. They can easily spot successes, risks, and potential failures. They can train, reward, and most importantly retain staff. It’s also important to note that ESS isn’t built just to support the practice leader or business owner - ESS was developed to support the mid-level managers within practices who are the lifeblood of that practice’s daily functioning. In this way, the business owner is freed up to do what they do best - treat clients and patients. They also have the time and mental space to plan for the future of the business - and access to the technology to make a multiple-location practice not only possible but also an attractive and exciting option.

ESS is comprehensive in its support function to improve and grow practices and other small businesses, and it’s well on its way to becoming the industry standard. In the near future, the world before process-based SaaS practice software will seem as distant as the world that used typewriters and tracked sales leads in spreadsheets or even (gasp!) notebooks. 

Reach out for an ESS platform demo. We’re here to help you and your team learn, do, inspire, and plan.