Category: Clinic Tips & Tricks

Malaysia is among the top Asian countries with extremely high child obesity rates. Besides that, heart diseases and mental health issues are also prevalent. While some of these cases are due to genetics, most are a result of long-term neglect and poor lifestyle choices.

Read how you can utilize preventive healthcare to help patients switch from being reactive to taking proactive measures for their health and wellbeing.

1. Communication is Key in Preventive Healthcare

At the primary level, your main job is to be an educator about preventive measures such as vaccination. One practical tip to keep in mind is that the way you communicate to patients about immunity is key. Studies have shown that while anti-vax groups can influence patients, they ultimately will listen to their doctor’s advice.

Doctors must communicate their genuine belief in the benefits of vaccination even with non-verbal cues. By beginning the conversation about vaccination with a recommendation (instead of an open question), chances of acceptance will be higher. However, to understand the push-back, it may help to gather as much information as you can about their skeptical attitude.

2. Check-in on Check-ups

Since specialists tend to schedule patients for appointments happening months later, patients tend to reschedule. Some might even forget about it altogether! This is where you can play a role in making sure your patients don’t miss out on important screenings.

Sometimes patients may refuse to follow up on an issue with a specialist out of fear, embarrassment, or financial difficulties. As their physician, you can help by directing them to more affordable medical services or by clearing any misinformation. Discovering barriers to screenings and tracking their appointment updates is vital to providing the best preventive healthcare.

3. Don’t Ignore Mental Health in Preventive Healthcare

With the Coronavirus rampaging our nation and the lockdown, the public’s mental health is at an all-time low. New cases and declining finances are among the things that plague the minds of restless Malaysians under lockdown. When not managed properly, a patient could develop a serious mental disorder.

Patients often won’t know a serious issue has developed until it’s too late. It takes a sincere conversation with someone to catch the signs of internal struggles early on. While you may not be an expert, you can encourage an open dialogue by asking how they’re doing in life.

If patients show distress over issues like finances or employment termination, they may be indicators of declining mental health. You can help by directing them to a trained therapist. Always prepare to offer free alternatives to patients who cannot afford therapy.

One of the best things you can do is to increase awareness of the importance of preventive healthcare. If your schedule permits, reach out to medical schools to conduct a workshop or online seminar. In addition, you could advocate for better community resources so more people can have access to excellent preventive healthcare services.

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Every medical practice owner knows that high-quality healthcare starts with hiring exceptional talent. But one common challenge for small independent clinics is the competition. 

It’s difficult to attract quality staff when hospitals and big clinics dominate the talent search war. Sure, you may not be able to compete with facilities or salaries. But it doesn’t mean you have to settle for sub-par medical staff. Instead, you may find that all it takes is a little strategy to send top talents running through your clinic’s doors. 

1. Follow the Talent

Why wait for talent to come when you can go to them? An increasingly common way to make sure your practice is only hiring top-tier medical staff is to identify promising talent early. 

Reach out to your local medical school or college and ask if they will partner you in forming internship programs. This arrangement exposes bright students to a professional medical setting. By setting aside time to mentor them, you’re not just helping students make decisions about their career paths. You’re also inspiring loyalty in a possible future recruit. 

As a result, the school will also gain a reputation for having a hands-on program that prepares its students for a professional medical career. It’s a win-win for everybody. 

2. Know the Hiring Advantage You Have Over Others

Another method is to consider the benefits you can offer to potential recruits. You may be surprised to learn that high salaries and large facilities aren’t always the selling point. There are some things that money can’t buy. 

As a small practice, this is where you have the advantage over large institutions. You are free to offer more flexibility like work-life balance, flexible schedules, increased maternity leave, the option to work remotely, and more vacation days. 

3. Be Creative with Perks and Benefits 

Don’t be afraid to offer tailor-made benefits to individual staff because the standard benefits like medical insurance may not be applicable or a priority to some. 

For example, there could be an outstanding medical staff out there who happens to be a new parent. The flexible schedules you offer may just earn you a star recruit.

If you’re daring, you could even let control be the perk of working in your clinic. Some physicians prefer to work a certain way and being able to call the shots in a few areas could be an attractive benefit. 

Allow them control over specific aspects like the scope of their practice coverage, their working hours, and hiring their own care teams. A little bit of control goes a long way in recruiting and retaining the right staff.

4. Turn to Tech for Hiring

Given that most young people use mobile apps to apply for jobs nowadays, it makes sense to search for your next talent there. Job apps and websites are great places to hire. The key is to choose one that offers a simplified and convenient screening process. 

Finally, your best bet in hiring great staff for your clinic is to plan ahead. Many clinics notice a need for new talent only when the situation is dire. By planning ahead, you avoid settling for average recruits and ensure that you have the budget for a quality addition to your team. 

Whether you’re planning to stock up on medication or simply looking for a reliable supplier for your new clinic, Mayflax is here for you! Find out more about our quality products and affordable services on our website.  

Did you know that medical errors kill more people than cancer, diabetes, or motor accidents in Malaysia? Since so much is unknown about the genetic and environmental factors causing many major diseases, doctors have to rely on guesswork. But personalized medicine may soon give way to a more precise method of diagnosis. More importantly, it could even stop diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and cancer dead in their tracks.

What Is Personalized Medicine?

Also known as precision medicine or genomic medicine, personalized medicinetailors medical decisions and interventions to individual patients. It utilizes molecular profiling to aid doctors in detecting gene mutations. These mutations may be due to a person’s unique environment, biology, or lifestyle.

In addition, molecular profiling enables doctors to identify other things like cancer biomarkers. This early detection plays a huge role in predicting the chances of a patient contracting cancer. Detecting biomarkers also lets doctors customize effective strategies to prevent cancer and other major diseases.

Reactive vs Preventive

This approach shifts from a previously reactive method to a preventive one. In the past, people have deemed medicine effective based on the fact that it works for most people. But why it doesn’t for the remaining patients is a mystery that has been swept under the rug. As a result, patients need to bear with costly trial-and-error approaches and failed attempts to treat symptoms of misdiagnosed diseases.

Molecular profiling has shown that every individual has a unique genetic code that affects their health in ways we cannot see. By harnessing data on the genetic level, doctors can break the limitations of traditional medicine. Although it is still a relatively new field of study, personalized medicine has paved a trail to a brighter future for healthcare.

Precise Diagnosis in Personalized Medicine

Special blood tests could potentially identify tumor DNA instead of using expensive PET scans that emit high levels of radiation. This can tell doctors if patients are responding to treatment or are in remission. Prescribing drugs based on the tumor’s genetic make-up instead of the type of cancer is a radical approach that could transform the future of medicine.  

Reduced Risk of Side Effects

Data collected from patients’ genes can predict how different patients will react to a type of medicine. It also informs the doctor on whether or not any harmful side effects will occur, taking out the guesswork involved. Therefore, patients can avoid side effects that might develop from taking an unsuitable drug.

Re-engineer Cells to Fight Cancer

Another way personalized medicine can help is through CAR T-cell therapy. This method involves taking T-cells from the blood of cancer patients and genetically engineer them to attack the cancer cells in their own body.

Prevention over Treatment

Myriads of treatmentscan never compare to an effective method to slow or stop the onset of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The advent of a way to single out biomarkers linked to the diseases may soon promise a whole new approach to prevent them entirely.

Without a doubt, discussions about the future of medical breakthroughs that personalized medicine will bring are exciting. However, we can’t forget how far current practices and medicine have brought us. They did, after all, lay the foundation for new discoveries.

Discover how Mayflax can be your solution to having the best medicine for your patients. With over 25 years of experience, Mayflax is the one-stop solution to your pharmaceutical needs. Find out more on our website!

Owning a clinic involves increasing the bottom line and raising revenue, which means you need a steady patient flow. Unfortunately, the profitability of your medical practice is of no concern to your patients. They want the best bang for their buck, and with good reason.

So, how does one go about running a profitable and productive clinic? Like it or not, profit margins are the distinction between a flourishing and floundering practice. While dedicated patient care and word of mouth contribute to attracting patients, there are other doable approaches.

In this article, we’ll be exploring a few unexpected tips aimed at elevating productivity and raking in the money.

1. Improve Patient Satisfaction & Support

Did you know that acquiring a new patient is much costlier than retaining an existing one? Patient loyalty is crucial for practice growth, which requires providing the best experience to translate into revenue. Poor patient service not only damages your clinic’s reputation but could reduce patient retention and lead generation. 

Besides medical care, ensure that your patients feel comfortable from the moment they walk in. You can keep a drinking water facility, reading materials or television in the waiting room. Remember to hold your staff accountable for implementing these strategies across the practice.

Work as a team to create benchmarks that measure effectiveness, then gather feedback from staff members to better assess your patients’ needs.

2. Use IT to Schedule Clinic Appointments

No one likes waiting at the clinic. Poor scheduling can derail a patient’s experience quick, simultaneously making you lose out on patients you could have otherwise accommodated. Thus, using a reliable IT solution will let you communicate to patients vis-à-vis appointment times and take walk-ins seamlessly during vacant slots.

Smoother operations equate to better patient satisfaction, higher revenues, and not to mention, a productive clinical staff.

3. Make Operational Changes in Your Clinic

To attract more patients without prepending operational and marketing expenses, try upselling or cross-selling. For instance, you can switch to a relationship-based model by offering a bundle of visits at a discounted price. You may also provide new services that complement current offerings, such as free follow-ups, analysing reports, etc.

4. Network with Allied Professionals

The medical field goes beyond doctors and nurses. We suggest networking with other medical care providers like pharmacists, physicians, pathologists and so on. An excellent network of allied medical services can support each other with references, perhaps even share knowledge and expertise.

5. Have Medication Delivered to You

When there are so many aspects to cover in running a clinic, expediency makes for productivity’s best friend. Sourcing your pharmaceutical needs, on the other hand, is anything but. Furthermore, manufacturers often encourage bulk purchases where your money would be tied down in stocks, causing difficulty making timely payments to your suppliers.

You can always seek out a reputable wholesaler, like Mayflax, which allows cash flow flexibility. Consumers will enjoy a wide array of affordable pharmaceutical products available for long-term delivery. That way, your healthcare team can focus on more pressing matters at hand.

Success is not without its investments. However, consistently employing these simple measures ensures you the returns you deserve in no time. Find out more about Mayflax’s services or contact us for more information.

According to IMS Health Institute, the US healthcare system saves nearly $2.2 trillion from 2009 to 2019, by substituting generic medicines from its original counterpart.

Despite that, Malaysia however, has a low total expenditure for generic medicines.

It is estimated that Malaysia spends only 30% of its total spending on pharmaceuticals on generic medicines, while 70% is from innovator products.

Studies showed that innovator products sold in Malaysia were 27-90% more expensive than the generics, leading to high healthcare expenditure.

Healthcare expenditure in Malaysia

In 2011, the total expenditure on prescription medicine for government hospitals and primary health clinics was RM 1.767 billion.

The high expenditure may be due to high medicine prices, poor availability of generics as well as high use of innovator or branded medicines. 

Thus, World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the generic medications policies to be implemented in member countries to promote the availability and affordability of essential medications.

Generic medicines are equivalent to its innovator brand in terms of:

• Dosage form
• Safety
• Strength & Route of administration
• Quality
• Performance
• Characteristics
• Intended use

To sum up, it is an equal substitute for its original counterpart.

The role of generic medicine is to provide a more affordable alternative than its innovator brands, without compromising with its safety, efficacy and quality.

However, knowledge on generic drugs is still low.

In fact, a study revealed that many patients were not aware of the similarities of generic and original brand medication.

On the other hand, another study concluded that majority of physicians from private medical centres in Malaysia had negative perceptions on generic drugs.

Consequently, it may cause of limited use of generic medicines in the private medical centre.

Policy to encourage use

Generic Medicines Policy (GMP), a part of National Medicines Policy is formulated to encourage the use of generic medicines among different healthcare stakeholders.

Other than that, implementing national medicine pricing policy which controls drug prices in both public and private sector, will be a great effort to reduce expenditure and improve medicine affordability in Malaysia.

In conclusion, there are several techniques that can be implemented to encourage use.

This is without forgetting that both patients and prescriber must be educated on the similarities and differences of generic medications.

Here at Mayflax, we provide up to 2,000 pharmaceutical products, both original and generic brands. Buy them with the best prices from us, to offer the best price to your customers. Click here to learn more!

Reference

Ahmad, N. S., & Islahudin, F. (2018). Affordability of essential medicine prices in Malaysia’s private health sector. 

https://www.pharmacy.gov.my/v2/sites/default/files/document-upload/gmap-book-2013.pdf

Ministry of Health Malaysia. Malaysian National Medicines Policy

Rohit Kumar, M. A. (2015). Knowledge and perceptions of physicians from private neducak centres towards generic medicines: a nationwide survey from Malaysia. Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice.

Wong, Z. Y., Hassali, M. A., Alrasheedy, A. A., Saleem, F., Yahaya, A. H., & Aljadhey, H. (2014). Patients’ beliefs about generic medicines in Malaysia. 

Self-management support is typically for those with chronic conditions to help them manage their health consistently. While self-management tools do not improve specific illnesses per se, they positively impact overall patient wellness. 

These tools allow patients to track their symptoms, create goals, action plans and so on. Leveraging this technique can spark curiosity in patients to learn more about their conditions. More importantly, it cultivates motivation for them to be actively involved in their healthcare.

As technology permeates healthcare, doctor-patient relationships will remain indispensable. Hence, medical practitioners should continue using the best resources to give patients compassionate care.

What does Self-Management support include?

Aside from supplying information to patients, there are several other facets to consider. Doctors and clinical staff must first commit to patient-centred care, which involves:

• Scheduling patient visits that focus more on prevention and care management than critical care.
• Ensuring that patients understand the information and management plan (without the embellishment of too many technical terms).
• Helping them in goal setting for a healthier lifestyle.
• Providing proper education and materials for different cultures and health literacy levels.
• Including the entire care team in planning, executing, and following up on patient visits.
• Using a good clinical system to keep track of patients.

Strategies & Tools to support Patient Self-Management

Engaging patients in durable self-management habits can inspire them to take the necessary steps for health maintenance. Still, it is up to the patient on how they take care of themselves outside the clinic. Medical care providers may instead advocate wellness programs, health technology, and other effective techniques.

Patient portal registration

Accessing the patient portal enables patients to review their health data and be reminded of their doctor’s notes regarding improvements. That way, they can self-manage and even consult with providers between visits. Through direct messaging, doctors can easily adjust medications accordingly, answer questions, revise treatment plans, etc.

In short, patients can use this tool to gain more knowledge about their health while actively participating. This aspect is critical for self-management, after all.

Health apps

Since most people today spend ample time on their smartphones, healthcare practitioners can encourage patients to utilise health apps. Programmes such as fitness trackers or medication adherence apps are highly customisable to the user, making self-management more convenient and practical.

Plus, these tools often have pop-up notifications to remind users of their self-care tasks, progression and more.

Other materials

Primary care staff may coach patients to come up with action plans, develop goal-setting worksheets, and teach them some problem-solving tactics. Offer educational materials appropriate for your diverse patients, ones they can act on and understand. Additionally, the two parties can coordinate and set agendas for each visit.

Managing illnesses, chronic or no, is never easy. Incorporating self-management support into any practice could improve doctor-patient satisfaction, and above all, build confidence in patients to lead better lives.

That said, Mayflax is a one-stop centre that provides support for your practice in pharmaceutical purchases. With fast deliveries of a broad range of pharmaceutical products, you can focus on other hectic areas that entail running a clinic.

Find out more about our services or contact us if you have any enquiries.