Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / John Button, Executive Chairman at CollectiveCare Dental

Transcript

John Button, Executive Chairman at CollectiveCare Dental · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

• 0:03
  It is so important for leaders at the top of organizations to keep learning,
• 0:07
  stay sharp, grow their networks,
• 0:09
  help our audience better do this in a more simplified, personalized,
• 0:12
  and meaningful way. Becker's Healthcare has launched my b h c,
• 0:16
  it's your trusted Becker's healthcare experience and more with content,
• 0:19
  connections, events, and learning opportunities.
• 0:22
  Join the community free of charge@www.my dot becker's hospital
• 0:27
  review.com and we'll see you there.
• 0:33
  This is Riz Hatton with the Becker's Dental Pasti. So podcast,
• 0:37
  I'm thrilled to be joined today by John Button,
• 0:40
  executive chairman of Collective Care Dental. John,
• 0:43
  thank you so much for being here today.
• 0:46
  My pleasure, Riz. Thanks for having me.
• 0:49
  Could you start off by introducing yourself and telling us a bit,
• 0:52
  a bit about your background? Sure.
• 0:55
  Happy to do that. Uh, I grew up with, uh, the son of a doctor,
• 1:00
  so healthcare has always been my passion. That said, I went to college.
• 1:05
  I was married at a young age,
• 1:07
  got out and went into an industry totally removed from this. Uh, I had,
• 1:12
  uh, a good career. It, it was, uh, uh,
• 1:16
  a very fulfilling in a lot of ways and I had a lot of responsibility,
• 1:21
  but I never had the passion around that industry that I had around healthcare.
• 1:25
  So I was running a, a fairly sizable business,
• 1:29
  but just eight to get into healthcare.
• 1:31
  So I left and brought the experience that I had to the healthcare environment
• 1:35
  back probably in the early nineties. I had a consulting business,
• 1:40
  consulting with doctors and dentists and hospitals and things like that on a
• 1:44
  variety of issues. And, uh, so that's the background that I had.
• 1:48
  Uh, when we finally decided to get into this business back in, uh,
• 1:53
  2000, mid, uh, 2014 or so, uh,
• 1:57
  we actually acquired our first practice in 2015 and Collective Care
• 2:02
  went from there. So that's my background, Riz.
• 2:05
  Fantastic. Thank you for sharing. Let's dive into my first question here.
• 2:10
  What are the biggest issues you're following in dental today?
• 2:14
  That's a great question. I, I'm going to look at it a couple different ways.
• 2:18
  I think if I were to say, what are we following in healthcare today, it's,
• 2:23
  it's obviously, or in dentistry today,
• 2:25
  it's obviously the emerging technology and its
• 2:30
  impact both clinical and nonclinical and its impact on the industry.
• 2:35
  As I think about that question,
• 2:38
  I also think about it in terms though of what are we focusing on internally
• 2:43
  in our business,
• 2:44
  and I think that's probably a little bit relevant to the conversation because as
• 2:49
  with dentists all over the country,
• 2:53
  staffing has been a real issue that we've had to focus on,
• 2:57
  particularly since the pandemic and driving patient loyalty is what
• 3:02
  dentistry's all about.
• 3:04
  So we spend an awful lot of time thinking about how do we continue
• 3:09
  to grow our patient base.
• 3:11
  And I think that stems from patients receiving excellent dentistry
• 3:16
  in a caring and compassionate manner from people who they enjoy being around
• 3:22
  and people,
• 3:23
  those people have to enjoy being around the folks they're working with to have
• 3:28
  that show through to the patients.
• 3:29
  So we spend an awful lot of time focusing on what I'll call culture within the
• 3:34
  practices. Uh, you know, I think as you,
• 3:39
  uh, as you try to grow your practice,
• 3:43
  losing key people has had a real impact on this industry.
• 3:48
  And as we all know,
• 3:49
  the hygienist workforce decline somewhat after the pandemic.
• 3:54
  So how do you attract great people and
• 3:59
  keep them in ways other than just continually increasing
• 4:03
  compensation because that's unsustainable.
• 4:06
  And one of the things we noticed during the pandemic was that as the
• 4:11
  workforce became, uh, smaller, uh,
• 4:16
  then people started saying, well, we'll answer that by paying people more money.
• 4:20
  And that, that is unsustainable,
• 4:21
  particularly if you're running a business and you have to generate a profit at
• 4:25
  some point, there's gonna be an end to that. And I think generally, people who,
• 4:30
  who change jobs strictly for the money are only gonna
• 4:35
  be there until the next dollar comes along. Uh,
• 4:39
  so we've spent an awful lot of time focusing on
• 4:44
  education internally, staff training, staff, education,
• 4:49
  uh, how do we do things internally that are fun?
• 4:53
  How do we get people to enjoy being together,
• 4:56
  create an environment where people wanna be there for reasons other than
• 5:01
  just fair pay? So obviously fair pay is a very important thing,
• 5:06
  but we strive very hard to provide an environment that, uh,
• 5:11
  encourages people to really wanna be there.
• 5:14
  Interesting. Thank you. Sure. So looking ahead into the future of industry,
• 5:19
  what are you most excited about and what makes you nervous?
• 5:24
  The emergence of technology is critically important in this business,
• 5:29
  and I think I'm, I'm very excited about that.
• 5:32
  I think the quality of dentistry is gonna improve. I think the, uh, and that,
• 5:37
  you know, with things like 3D printing,
• 5:40
  the cost of providing some of that service will get better.
• 5:43
  Digital dentistry is critically important.
• 5:46
  It gives patients the opportunity with Al cameras, et cetera,
• 5:50
  to see things differently than they were able to in the past.
• 5:54
  So it's good from, uh,
• 5:56
  in terms of educating the patients on what's really happening, you know,
• 6:00
  in their own situation. 3D technology is great,
• 6:04
  is a great diagnostic tool for certain things.
• 6:08
  And then if you look beyond just the clinical technology,
• 6:11
  the practice management,
• 6:12
  web-based systems with analytics capabilities and things like that
• 6:17
  are,
• 6:18
  are very important to optimizing the performance of your practice,
• 6:24
  the patient communicator tools, the on online appointment, appointment,
• 6:28
  scheduling, you know, just all kinds of things. And then of course,
• 6:32
  artificial intelligence, which is emerging now as extremely interesting,
• 6:38
  uh, across not only dentistry and healthcare, but in, you know,
• 6:41
  all kinds of other areas as well.
• 6:45
  So those are some of the things I think that I'm excited about.
• 6:48
  I think it's gonna really change the scope of the provision of
• 6:53
  healthcare across all, all aspects of it,
• 6:57
  not just dentistry.
• 7:00
  Interesting.
• 7:01
  So what will the most effective healthcare leaders need to be successful in the
• 7:06
  next two to three years?
• 7:09
  Uh, great question. A couple of things. First of all,
• 7:13
  cybersecurity is probably the biggest threat that we have right now.
• 7:18
  And sometimes I think that goes, uh,
• 7:21
  it gets overlooked to the extent that the impact could, uh,
• 7:26
  have. So, you know,
• 7:27
  we're HIPAA compliant industry and payon data is so critically
• 7:32
  important.
• 7:33
  So obviously I think healthcare leaders always have to be very focused
• 7:38
  on what the success factors in their industry are.
• 7:42
  And so healthcare leaders are gonna have to be very attuned to keeping
• 7:47
  their enterprises as secure as possible,
• 7:51
  capturing good data,
• 7:53
  utilizing the analytics are things that, you know, we,
• 7:57
  we didn't have to do that to the same extent and didn't have the ability to do
• 8:01
  that to the same extent in the past as we're gonna be able to do as we can
• 8:05
  today, as we're gonna be able to do tomorrow.
• 8:08
  So the really good leaders in this industry are gonna take advantage of that.
• 8:13
  I think they're gonna take, uh, stay abreast of not only nonclinical,
• 8:17
  but also clinical technology evolution.
• 8:22
  And the, the, Tim, in my way of thinking, r uh,
• 8:27
  it's not critical to be leading edge in everything. You know, I think the,
• 8:32
  I always say this internally in our business,
• 8:35
  w we need to determine what's truly an investment and provides the right kind of
• 8:39
  return versus what's a cost.
• 8:42
  Some things are nice to have and they're great and they look good and they're
• 8:46
  pretty,
• 8:46
  but they don't really improve the performance of the business to the extent that
• 8:50
  they're worth the investment. Other things may seem expensive,
• 8:55
  but the return, uh,
• 8:56
  that you get for investing in that particular technology or whatever it is,
• 9:01
  uh, it makes it something you, you can't do without.
• 9:05
  So I think good leaders are gonna have the ability to think that way.
• 9:09
  And I also think the last element,
• 9:12
  I guess would be getting outside the box
• 9:17
  . And I'm not suggesting this that I'm gonna say, but I,
• 9:20
  I think one example of that is you read a lot today about the four day work
• 9:25
  week.
• 9:26
  I haven't heard anybody in dentistry talking about going to a four day work week
• 9:30
  for the, you know, the practice as a whole. Individual dentists may do that,
• 9:34
  but not the practice as a whole. And I'm not suggesting it,
• 9:37
  we haven't really looked at it,
• 9:40
  but stepping back from tra the traditional thing and looking at new ideas that
• 9:44
  come along to see what the impact might be on the overall
• 9:49
  practice, on the employees, uh, on, on,
• 9:53
  on all aspects of it, I think that really good leaders are gonna be,
• 9:59
  you know, looking at, at new ideas on a continual basis and,
• 10:03
  and bringing some of those to bear.
• 10:07
  Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, John, for joining us today,
• 10:11
  and thank you for all of your fascinating insights.
• 10:13
  I look forward to connecting with you again in the future.
• 10:17
  Thank you. R I enjoyed it. I look forward to that.