From the Wrist Watch, to Siri, to Smart Software

Ask a room full of under 25 year old professionals if they are wearing a wrist watch. If you are over 25 you will be surprised at how few are actually wearing one. Why? The digital world has eliminated the need to look at you wrist to tell the time. The time is everywhere. It is on their phone, on their computer, in their car. For the most part they can find the time at any given time without the major inconvenience of looking at their wrist.

In the past a wrist watch was a status symbol. It meant you were able to afford the latest technology. It said, “I am a serious business person”. I heard a quote one time, “I never trust a man who does not wear a watch”, but why? It meant they valued their time and yours. That they lived for more than the present moment and considered the future. Wearing a watch meant you were forward thinking. My how things have changed.

So what does this have to do with Siri and chiropractic software? Clearly the new status symbol is the cell phone, or now, “smart phone”. Not only does it say you are cutting edge, but it means you are connected and it even means you are more intelligent Prediction: 30 years from now wrist watches will be for collecting and old people.

There is another important distinction sown by the modern smart phone. They are “smart”. Siri has a name. Let me say that again, you can name your phone. Why name it? Because it talks back! You actually have a relationship with your phone! What does the phone tell you?

Forget an appointment book. Remember that thing you used to carry around? Gone. Not needed. An analog/paper version. You used to have to memory manage you schedule for the day and tomorrow and next week. Not anymore. Just tell Siri. In the past, busy people, like chiropractors, might have an entire full time or part time employee just to manage their appointments. Not any more.

From Siri to Smart Chiropractic Software

There was an in between step from the appointment book to Siri (Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface). That was a digital appointment book. Remember the PDA? Same basic function as the paper appointment book but it saved a lot of space since you could store all of your contacts in it. There were the Palm, BlackBerry and even the original iPhones.

Older chiropractic software like Platinum or Chirotouch rely on the wrist watch concept. They are not as bad as paper but they are NO Siri. They are like the Palm or BlackBerry. You can save lot of space, document digitally, and even make your office more efficient.

The gaps between these types of systems and a system like Genesis Chiropractic Software are many but in this context, there is one glaring difference. This systems are not going to speak to you. They are not going to tell you how many no shows you have. What’s that? A report? That’s good but there is a big difference between having to look at a report (Appointment Book or PDA) and the report coming to you (Siri Talking to you).

Genesis tells you, in the form of tasks, what critical patient relationship risks need to be addressed right now. It identifies the outstanding issues and assigns them to a specific staff member, maybe even you, automatically. There can be many types of tasks. Just to name a few:

1. Missed Appointments
2. Expired Care Plans
3. No Future Appointments
4. Balance Threshold Exceeded
5. Daily SOAP Notes That Are Not Signed
6. Compliance Red Flags
7. Insurance Claims That Need Immediate Attention

With software that functions more like Siri and less like a Blackberry, you can begin to gain control over all of the important things that need to happen every day because it is not dependent on you looking anywhere. The information comes to you. It is like not having to look at your watch or look at a blackberry to tell the time or what appointments you have tomorrow. The technology speaks to you in the form of tasks.

When all critical tasks are put on one manageable dashboard you can see at a glance you can see who has the most work, what type of problems are happening most, and how much work there is and most importantly, what work did not get finished.

- Think of the billing software that finds the claims for you rather than digging through aging reports and having no idea if your biller is getting everything finished.