As the author of Survive, Thrive or Dive, Dr. Orieux explains that a Mission Statement can be a double-edged sword. If the Mission Statement is understood, embraced and exemplified by those within an organization then a higher purpose and level of service can be the result.
Alternatively, if the people within the organization are not wholeheartedly committed and purposely focused on achieving the Mission Statement, then it's simply a collection of meaningless words.
At the Veritas Dental, we're so committed to our Mission Statement that we've taught dentists, doctors, nurses and clinical teams across Canada and the United States how to implement the patient-centered philosophy embodied by the following:
All of my energy, emotion, and effort is focused on making the patient feel comfortable physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
After I have accomplished that, then all of my energy, emotion, and effort goes into serving the needs of my co-workers physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Once I have accomplished that, then all of my energy, emotion and effort is focused on maintaining the professional image of healthcare and the health and welfare of this practice.
And my needs come fourth.
The American Medical Association defines holistic medicine as caring for your patients not just physically, but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
That's our goal.
At the Veritas Dental, our mission is to provide you and your family with the highest quality of dental treatment we can, but that's just the physical part of the equation. We believe that in order to achieve our entire Mission Statement, we also need to focus on serving our patient's mental, emotional and spiritual needs.
In other words, it's about more than just your teeth.
We know that coming to the dentist can create anxiety for many people for many different reasons. Every member of the Veritas Dental has been thoroughly trained to provide a level of synergistic service to our patients that defines our belief that holistic care goes beyond just technical expertise, it encompasses compassion, empathy and nurturing.
In this age of easy access to information, we realise that our patients are highly educated about different dental options, including new advances in materials and equipment.
This means that today's dental patients have many more questions than in days gone by. We further realise that today's patients want answers, and in a language that makes sense to them.
Our goal at the Veritas Dental is to provide these answers in terms our patients will understand. We endeavour not to speak in what is essentially a foreign language to our patients, namely, dental-ese. In fact, we encourage our patients to hold us accountable if we do not speak in a language that is easy to understand, or if we do not answer their questions to their full satisfaction.
Knowledge is power, and we want to empower our patients with whatever information they require to make intelligent, informed decisions about their dental health care needs. When our patients are more knowledgeable, they are more at ease.
Each member of the Veritas Dental staff is focused and committed to addressing any anxieties and specific concerns our patients may have. We realise that many of our patients have trepidations about "a trip to the dentist". We also realise that most of this trepidation is rooted in memories from past dental experiences.
At the Veritas Dental we take the time to interview every one of our new patients to determine what, if any, past experiences might contribute to present-day anxieties about dental treatment. Then we do our very best to avoid, eliminate or overcome whatever things from our patients' past which have contributed to any lingering sense of anxiety or fear.
We also realise that patients are looking for doctors and medical support staff that they can trust. In dental school, this was called "building a bond of faith and trust" and we realise that this bond of faith and trust is not something we should just expect our patients to hand over to us; it's something we must earn.
We create a bond of faith and trust by building relationships with our patients. You can't measure faith by placing electrodes on a patient's forehead and reading a measurement off some electronic gizmo just as you can't measure trust from a blood test or other clinical vital signs. Faith, by nature, resides in the spiritual component of our psyche, so we strive to create a spirit of comfort and ease by looking after our patients holistically.
To help us build this bond of faith and trust, we need to hear about our patients' concerns. We call this "Actively Seeking Rejection". We proactively and continually interview our patients to ensure we're meeting their needs as comprehensively as possible. Furthermore, we actually invite our patients to provide constructive criticism, because we believe that being open to hearing how we can improve is the only way we're going to improve.
Our entire team at the Veritas Dental is dedicated to providing a level of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual care that will ensure that every visit is a positive experience in a warm, friendly, and relaxing environment. We ask you to hold us accountable for achieving our Mission Statement, just as we hold each other accountable.
