As Tony the Tiger would say, Indiana was Grrrrrreat!

Hello Again,

What a great time I had speaking to the members of the Indiana State Management Association and a big thanks to my sponsor, Royal Canin!!!

I had a chance to visit the Broad Ripple Animal Hospital and it’s Administrator, Brenda Tassava.  You should see this operation!  It’s not too often that I have a chance to identify such clear evidence of an empowered, respected and motivated team.  If you’ve never been to Broad Ripple, it’s more of a campus than it is an Animal Hospital.  To point, as we tooled about the suburbs of Indianapolis, it seemed like Brenda was pointing out yet another side branch of Broad Ripple’s remarkable care facility.  Our first stop was their administrative building, just a few steps from the Broad Ripple Animal hospital itself.  As soon as you walk in, you see a cozy room outfitted with about 40 chairs, a large screen and any number of posters, work sheets and motivational slogans from meetings past.  Immediately one is aware that this is an animal hospital where meetings generate the input of all; where employees are looked to for solutions; where goals are clear and progress tracked. You know those angry signs you see at practices?  ALL LAB FORMS MUST BE INITIALED BY THE PERSON TAKING THE SAMPLE.  KEEP THIS AREA CLEAN!!!  Well, you don’t see those here.  These walls attest to a team that is respected, loved, coached and relied upon for its talent. 

Once we left the Admin building (Brenda pulled me away from a welcoming bowl of chocolates she keeps on her desk…a friendly invitation to sit down, talk and be comforted), she took me to their Day Care Center. 

Day Care Center?   I’m getting this tour at 730 am.  My coffee hasn’t kicked in.  I’m wishing I would have pocketed a couple of chocolates to last me through the remaining walk and now she’s taking me to the…did she day the Day Care Center?  Is that code for animal boarding or…

Oh my god…they have a Day Care Center!  Not for the four legged companion animals…the two legged ones…the kids of the staff.  They have a whole building dedicated to providing care for the children of the staff that work there!  I’m shocked.  I pass a counter that has four high chairs all ready to go, that will be covered in cheerios no doubt in the next 10 minutes.  There’s a back yard play area.  There’s two nanny’s, or trainers, or nurses…I don’t know what you call them.  I wasn’t raised with that luxury.  Whenever my mom couldn’t look after me, she sent her sister over and she liked her drink, if you get my meaning.  “Hey kid, want Aunt Franny to show you how to make a high ball?”  That was my experience with day care.  But here, they got not one, but two staff members whose sole job is to take care of the staff’s children.   I’m just blown away. Brenda broke all the rules of what we are supposed to do when running a practice, saw a need for child care, created the program and then had it licensed by the State.  Now, staff members can return to work sooner…or, as is the case with some… have a chance to work at all…something they would not be able to do had Brenda and her team not thought of this remarkable benefit.

So next we enter the lobby of their warm, urbane hospital.  Everyone is ‘Hi! How are you? Great to see you!’  Are they laying this on because Boss Woman is with me or is this for real?  When you see as many practices as I do, it goes with the turf that a few members of the crew are going to be toxic.  But I don’t see that demonstrated here.  This crew is positive and happy.  I know how long that takes to achieve.  I know that this team is the product of a long, steady effort to improve, mold and manage excellence. 

They take me back to their carefully designed and beautifully styled treatment area.  Even the colors of this practice have been thoughtfully reviewed.  While the exam rooms are done in quiet, soothing tones, the treatment area is done in a bold blue and Halloween orange.  The exam room and public areas say, “It’ll be okay.  Can’t you see you’ve come to a sophisticated and caring place?”  The treatment area says, “All right, guys, let’s go!” This AAHA accredited practice had SEVEN anesthetic procedures scheduled for their day. One surgeon and three techs and a deadline to finish by 3pm.  I was impressed. 

Back in the admin office, I got ready to go to the hospital that was hosting our talk.  While I rummaged through my bag, I noted one more important aspect of this practice.  Laughter.  Lots of it.  Not goofing off, clowning around laughter.  Happy laughter.  Laughter that was an outward expression of people enjoying their environment, their work and their day.  In the talk that I do, I make reference to a ‘Well Managed Study’ and I wondered if those who conduct it ever considered using this kind of  laughter as one of the qualifications for such a designation.

The quarterly meeting was held at The Circle City Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Hospital and is a beautiful state of the art facility.  We had an excellent turn out and I did a thorough talk on Pricing and Key Performance Indicators.  I like this talk, especially with a group of managers that are of the caliber attending this kind of function.  These are your high-end managers who enjoy digging deep into the software and statistics for ways to improve.  It’s a little geeky of me, I admit it, but I love it and it seemed like they did to. 

So what were some of our cool take aways?

About four members of the group have completely given up advertising in the yellow pages and saw no drop in their business at all.

Some veterinary facilities share a great deal of financial information with their team.  Others felt that sharing percentage change with their group was sufficient. 

Some had the nerve to admit their discounting might be out of hand, but we talked through ways to track their referrals from such discounting as a way to determine if their practices were paying off.

This was a cool thought:  Is your online pharmacy currently being managed by a third party?  Why not negotiate their margin on your prices so you can provide product at competitive prices but still keep hold of YOUR margin? Attending managers said it was possible so let the phones start ringing! (Oh, God, Vetstreet is going to kill me for saying that…you did NOT hear it from me!  It wasn’t even my idea!  Some other blabber mouth brought it up!  Don’t give them my name, dang it!)

For more information on this lecture and ones coming up in the future, or the location and place of the flogging I’m bound to get from any number of vendors, give me a holler!

You have to come to these events. They're a blast!

Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, March 9th, 2011

One of the best parts of my job is the speaking assignments.  Often they are small groups of interested owners and managers looking for solutions and eager to participate in discussions on practice management.  Usually the event is held at some cool location.  Once I did a talk at a casino and everyone got 50 dollars to play in the slots when the meeting and dinner were over.  Sometimes, we all congregate in a conference room at a specialty practice.  But the venue doesn’t always have to be grand, not more than a month ago we all just met at a good restaurant.   The locations are the icing on the cake; the real fun is getting together with other interested folks, exchanging ideas and making friends.

Last night was a whopper though.  Under the sponsorship of Pfizer and Vetstreet, twenty of us went to The Rustic Kitchen located at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Wilkes Barre, Pa.  Wilkes-Barre who?  Wilkes -Barre, Pa, smarty pants, and wipe that smirk off your face.  I have to tell you,  you don’t know what you’re missing. 

The Rustic Kitchen is a cooking show!  The room is set up just like a stage, in arena style with the kitchen in the sunken center and all of the audience seated around the sides and front.  Pfizer led a great discussion on changes in the OTC market, Vetstreet told us about some pretty snazzy things it does to help us promote our business and I ran on at the mouth in my usual fashion, but at least got everybody pumped up and exchanging ideas.   

But the best part was to come.  Now that we were all loosened up and more like friends, the wine started flowing freely and the cooking show began.  It was just like sitting in a studio audience.  While the upbeat, pert chef walked us through the preparation steps of a vegetable terrine, a fish dish in parchment and a fantastic velvet cake cupcake, the rest of us dined on the very same food, served just as the ‘show piece’ was ready to go into the oven or onto the serving plate.  A total home run of a night.  I’m attaching a clip of my presentation so you can get a feel for some of the stuff we discussed.

Oh, BTW NE PA, make sure that you contact Susan Weber if you are interested in joining the management group she is organizing.  Her email is susan.j.weber@pfizer.com.  Look for our next meeting; we'd love to have you!

Welcome to our Blog

Hi there fellow managers!

My name is Bash Halow, I'm a consultant working with referral and general practices in NY, PA and MD.  I love the practices that I work with and the eager-to-succeed team members employed there.

In my experience, many hospitals have all the ingredients necessary to improve the care they provide their clients and patients and to become a work place that's rewarding and fun to be at.  For this reason, 'fixing' practices isn't as challenging as you think it might be.  All of the management tools required for a smooth running operation are already well established, tried and tested; you just  have to know where to find them and how to use them.  You'll also discover that the majority of your team members are eager for change and just as frustrated  with the problems in their work place as you are.  The biggest road block to change isn't a shortage of solutions or a well intended staff, the biggest block is entropy.  It's all those feelings that you have that it can't be done, it will be too hard, that you don't have time or that you have to wait till you find a better staff.

All of that is just head noise.  You can start now, you can improve,  and your efforts will make a positive impact on your team.  We've never seen a hospital where it isn't so.

My associates and I delight in working with all of our practices as closely as possible.  We visit at least once a month and we're in touch by phone, live webinars and email the rest of the time. We don't just coorespond to managers and owners, but suss out the strengths of everyone: kennel workers, client service representatives, assistants, technicians and doctors and get them involved in our plans for success and change.

It's exceedingly rare to find a practice that cannot be improved.  Like gardening, some seeds don't sprout unless they're planted at the right depth and watered the right way, so we make sure we figure out what and who we're dealing with and get it right.  Staff members interested in being part of something better step up, and if there are other members of your team that aren't interested in bettering themselves and decide to leave, the enthusiastic members of your team often shine all the brighter and fill in the gaps.

Until we have a chance to talk and meet with you, we'll keep you posted on what we're doing as a company and some helpful information that we run across that might be valuable.  Be sure to call on us if we can be of help.  Our contact information is on our website.