Benefit of Improved Compliance                                                            Return to Ortho Kinetics Home Page

We think improved compliance results in more treatment completed on time or earlier than promised.  Than means increased practice profits and shorter treatment times.

How do you increase patient compliance?

Managers of businesses all have the same problem.  It is discussed in management literature as performance improvement and performance measurement.

The current Industry Week Magazine February 15, 1999 has an article which can be instructive to us titled "What gets measured gets done".  The author, John Mariotti, is a former manufacturing company CEO and now has a consulting business.  I quote him because it it valuable to orthodontic practices:

What gets measured gets done

"The headline on this column may be an overworked cliche but only because it is all too true.  More significantly it suggests that developing proper measurement systems poses a challenge for businesses.  A friend of mine, Will Kaydos, would agree. He has written two books on the subject, including Operational Performance Measurement: Increasing Total Productivity (1999, St. Lucie Press). In a  recent conversation, I asked Will to help me identify a few of the most common measurement problems- along with solutions to share with readers of this column.   Here's what we came up with:

(editor's note: I  provide only his major points)

• Measuring what is easy to measure, instead of what's important to measure
• Failure to get beyond scorekeeping
• Failure to establish accountability for all aspects of a product and it's production process
• Not choosing relevant measures and not providing feedback".  By John Mariott

Why do I quote this to orthodontists?

The problem of patient compliance is very similar to regular business management's problems with employee productivity.  How do businesses get better productivity?

1. Define the objective
2. Measure performance
3. Reward excellent performance, recognize poor performance privately
4. Repeat step #1

We are suggesting our Compliance Science™ system and Affirm™ smart headgear as a significant step toward helping your manage this process with your patients.

It allows you to measure patient compliance.  To have any benefit, your office must use this information to manage patient compliance by rewarding proper behavior (good compliance) and discussing poor compliance with patients and parents privately.

The benefit of using a compliance measurement system is in the improved communication with patients and your ability to recognize patient compliance and reward it.  Our Compliance Science™ System  allows your practice to do this for a nominal cost.

Our field trial offices tell us about improved compliance and  better patient/parent communication.  Why don't you use modern technology to improve your patient motivation?

Compliance Science System