Cultural Integration Team Meeting Agenda

The cultural integration team meeting of your new practice allows you and your staff to focus on long-term goals in addition to the daily tasks needed to operate the practice. This two and a half hour agenda covers everything from icebreakers to your practice vision, from patient care philosophy to team agreements, and more.

Icebreaker (10 min)

1. Ice breakers set a tone for open communication throughout the meeting, rather than creating a “lecture-style” meeting that allows the staff to stay in a passive mode. Ice breakers set a tone for active communicating.
2. Examples of icebreaker questions include:
   • Please share one of your “bucket list” items.
   • What is the best advice you ever received?
   • What made you choose the dental field as a profession?
   • What is one thing you have accomplished you are most proud of?
3. You can move around the room so everyone answers according to where they are seated or toss a soft ball to the 1st person and let them toss it to the next person to answer. Make sure everyone gets a chance to speak.

Practice Vision (20 min)

1. The Practice vision should be written ahead of the meeting by the Doctor.
   • It is most effective to read the vision twice to allow for greater impact.
2. Please see example vision statements if you need to author your personalized vision.
3. Be sure to discuss the connotation of any words chosen in the statement that need more detail or explanation. “What that looks like to me is….”
4. The vision statement should be displayed in a staff-only area of the practice.

Patient Care Philosophy (30 min)

1. Discuss your philosophy of care. Are you conservative? Proactive? A long-range planner for patients?
2. Review the type of treatment offered in your practice and the value you feel it brings to patients. This is especially important for treatment that falls outside standard GP offerings such as orthodontics/Botox/sleep appliance/TMD treatment/implant placement.
3. It is helpful to discuss specific cases and patient outcomes.
4. Gain input from staff members during this discussion and let them share success stories related to the cases shared.

The Patient Experience (40 min)

1. The mission statement is written by the staff as a team and based on the vision statement.
2. The mission statement should be framed and displayed in a patient viewing area, such as the reception area. Keep this in mind when writing the mission.
3. It can be helpful to delegate 1 person as the scribe who can utilize a whiteboard during the process. We have provided an example patient experience grid here.
   • Draw a line down the middle of the whiteboard.
   • Make a list of your goals for the patient experience in one column. This may include comfort, short wait time, forming connections, calming environment, knowledge of technology available, etc.
   • After the first column is fully populated move into the second column with action items that will meet the objectives listed in the first column. This may include limiting interruptions in the op, soft voices, new patient process, music, etc.
4. Walk through the practice as if you were a patient and note changes that need to take place to ensure your facility matches the patient experience goals. Encourage open, honest input.

Team Agreements  (30 min)

1. Team agreements are written by the staff; they help define the parameters that everyone is comfortable working in.
2. Review any existing team agreements (if you have them.) Are any changes needed?  Does anything need further definition?
3. Plan to limit the team agreements to 5-10 individual statements.
4. See the team agreements example. Allow staff to read through these examples as they come up with the top 5-10 that are important for your working environment to be successful.

Staff Performance Review Forms (10 min)

It is helpful to provide each team member with the staff performance review form you will be using for future reviews. This sets up each team member for success as they learn what is important to you. Let them know you will set aside time to help them reach their career goals through this process. Your team members will feel cared for and know you care as much about them as the patients.

Q & A  (10 min)