The big game is right around the corner, and whether you're a Patriots or Seahawks fan (or neither for that matter), the Super Bowl is a fun time for all!

From a business perspective, many people focus on the marketing and advertising learning opportunities that arise from some of the greatest commercials of the year. While this is something to learn from, we want to offer some more relatable advice specifically for eyecare practices. Small business can learn a lot from the business of the NFL's greatest teams. And that's why we put together some resources to help you create a Super Bowl winning atmosphere and office workflow in your eyecare practice.

8 Resources to Become a Championship Winning Practice with a Great Office Workflow

Assemble the Best Team Possible

In order to get on your way to practice success you need to make sure that you're assembling the best team possible. Every eyecare practice needs a Russell Wilson or Tom Brady on their roster, keeping everyone motivated to perform their best. But, we also know that's easier said than done. So we've got a few resources to help you find and hire yoru next all-pro staff.

• Hiring Tips to Find Valuable Employees for Your Eyecare Practice
• Assembling and Training the Perfect Staff

We first mentioned the ePatient trend at the end of last year, and now it's time to really dig into who the ePatient is, and how you can utilize your EHR software to better serve them. In simple terms, the ePatient is someone who fully participates in their healthcare through the use of electronic tools. But, there is more to it than just knowing who the ePatient is. We're going to take it one step further and help you understand how the use of technology is shaping these patients in your eyecare practice.

We've broken down this trend into four P's that will help you and your team better understand the ePatient, and how you can use your EHR software to provide better care for them in your practice. 

The Four P's of Using EHR Software to
Care for ePatients

1. Provide

Technology has provided the ePatient with all of the necessary information they need in order to take an active role in their healthcare, and it's important that your EHR software does the same. Software featuring patient portals further provides the ePatient with useful health education. Patients being supplied with information directly from their ODs feel added security in knowing the information is coming from a reliable source.

Even outside of your patient portal, patients are always searching the Internet for health information. If you have the resources to provide more information to your patients through a blog or social media, it's a great way to help build up the credibility of your practice!

You can be incredibly organized and lay out a perfect schedule and plan your day ahead. But a late patient or a no-show can really throw off your entire schedule and ruin your day! Late patients can cause a build-up of wait time for other patients and may even cause you and your staff to work past office hours. And no shows directly impact your practice’s revenue. Some patients just don’t value time as much as you do, but there are also patients who encounter real emergencies. Either way, we show you a few ways that you can reduce the number of late or no-show patients.

By now you understand the importance of having a website for your eyecare practice. But just having a run of the mill website that you created maybe 5, or even 10, years ago might not be cutting it anymore. As more and more people are looking to the Internet for information, a visit to your practice's website is the first impression of your practice.

Does your website look dated? Can visitors easily find the information that they are looking for when they visit your site? Do you introduce yourself and your staff to new visitors? Do you provide an easy way for patients to request appointments or information online? There are tons of little things you can do to make your website more appealing, and helpful. So if you haven't taken the time to make updates lately, 2015 might be the year to do it.

6 Real Examples of Great Eyecare Practice Websites

Website Call-to-Actions

Call-to-actions are what encourages website visitors to take a certain action on your website. So if you want visitors to request an appointment, placing buttons on various pages of your site that promote appointments are a good way to do it. Lone Star Eye is an example of a practice that is great at utilizing call-to-actions on their website. For example, on their About Us page, below the introduction of their OD they have a bright blue "Make an Appointment" button that stands out to site visitors. From there they have the option of requesting appointments by email, or phone.

For any practice planning to implement a new practice management and EHR software, expect the journey to be an adventure for your whole practice! Change management is going to be very important in making sure that the transition to the new system goes smoothly. It’s important to keep everybody motivated, especially staff who has showed resistance to change. A way to keep your staff motivated is the use of positive reinforcement, like a reward system.

Today, we show you how you can easily build an incentive system for your staff throughout the implementation process.

How to Incentivize Staff When Switching EHR Software

1. Select goals

Goals can be broad statements that don’t necessarily contain specific objectives (we’ll talk about those later). To set a goal, you’ll need to ask you and your staff what you would want to achieve at the end of the implementation. Most practices would want their staff to use the new system proficiently, with a long term goal or increasing practice efficiency and revenue. But let’s stick to short term goals for this incentive program. Examples of those goals include:

• All staff to use new EHR software proficiently by [insert date or month].
• Go live with all live patient data by [insert date or month].