Innovation

Helping stressed-out GPs manage staffing issues in the workplace

New Innovator: Best Practice

Best Practice founder Asumpta Gallagher: 'Medical professionals are notably unprepared for the complex demands of business and staff management'

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Olive Keogh
Thu May 2 2024 - 05:00

Best Practice helps medical professionals without management training deal with staffing issues in the workplace.

Medical practices face the same commercial and HR challenges as any other small business, and while there are management systems that can help, most are focused on boosting income and easing the load for practice managers. What’s missing, says Asumpta Gallagher, founder of Best Practice, is support around “the people piece” as few medical professionals are trained to deal with the staff-related issues that will inevitably arise in their practices.

“In my experience, medical professionals starting out in practice are notably unprepared for the complex demands of business and staff management,” says Gallagher, who has spent more than 20 years in medical practice management.

“For the last six years, I’ve been working in a consultancy role with practices across Ireland and 80 per cent of the time the reason I’m hired is because of problems with staff. This varies from simple team disputes to situations that required a more structured intervention.

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These “administrative hurdles” cause significant stress for the medical professionals involved and distract from their fundamental mission, which is patient care.

“The consensus from talking to doctors is that managing staff can be daunting and I felt that what was needed was a system that would guide practitioners in this area and narrow the gap between medical proficiency and business savvy,” Gallagher adds.

Best Practice has evolved from Gallagher’s consultancy work to a stand-alone business and is aimed at those running all types of medical practices including GPs, vets, consultants, specialist clinics and dentists.

The company’s first customer pilot will begin later this month and, for now, practices will pay a flat monthly subscription to access the information, with a minimum sign-up period of 12 months.

“Best Practice Navigator is a very practical solution, but it is also one that recognises the need for support that goes beyond financial maximisation and addresses the day-to-day issues of wellbeing and operational efficiency among healthcare teams in the interests of improving the quality of patient care,” Gallagher says.

Typical examples of problems the system can help with include tackling persistent lateness among employees and handling patient complaints against staff members.

To further improve the smooth running of practices, Gallagher also offers training around topics such as meeting patient expectations and the non-clinical triage of appointments.

“When an issue arises, what’s needed is a speedy resolution because it’s upsetting for everyone involved,” she says. “Those in charge need to feel confident about addressing the problem in a safe and respectful way, and our system will bring them through the process step by step.”

Gallagher is based in Galway and has received support from Galway LEO. She is also a recent graduate of the Enterprise Ireland New Frontiers programme. While developing her idea for the Best Practice navigator, she also participated in the first Empower programme for female founders run by Atlantic Technological University.

Gallagher says the addressable market for Best Practice in Ireland is in excess of 3,500 medical practices – with GP practices alone making up over half of that figure.

The navigator framework has been designed to travel and can be applied in other English-speaking markets with appropriate customisation for local conditions and labour law. Gallagher has her sights firmly set on gaining a foothold in the US where there are more than 1.2 million family doctor practices.

Time rather than money was the biggest cost in developing the navigator as Gallagher prepared all the material from scratch while liaising with HR and legal professionals as required. In terms of hard cash, she estimates the investment at around €30,000.

Gallagher has planned the official commercial launch of the navigator for quarter two of next year and is now looking to raise €100,000 to expand her existing team of three and develop the navigator into a full SaaS platform incorporating elements of machine learning and AI.

Enterprise Ireland