While technology continues to reshape our society in both positive and negative ways, it is also changing how we connect with our neighbours and communities. For instance, emerging innovations such as robotic companions and digital platforms are showing promise in helping seniors overcome traditional barriers to human interaction — a group that has long faced challenges in maintaining the social connections vital to overall health and well-being.
At the same time, research is documenting digital communications’ contribution to the epidemic of loneliness and the lack of genuine, meaningful social interactions.
This is why we encourage you to take a step back from your day-to-day for a moment and consider your relationship to the broader neighbourhood, district, city, and region that you serve as appropriate to your patient demographics. How do you relate to the broader community? When was the last time you engaged with the community? What did you do? Ask your team. What would they like to do to further get to know and engage with their neighbours?
Why these questions matter
By establishing healthy relationships within/by reconnecting with your broader community, you are:
- Doing the obvious – Helping others by using your unique talents and expertise in health care.
- Bettering your community by helping to lift others.
- Engaging in group activities and rewarding causes to improve and support workplace morale.
- Exploring morale-boosting strategies as part of efforts to retain talent — in response to recruitment and retention challenges highlighted in Statistics Canada’s Survey of Oral Health Care Providers.
- Getting a strong reminder of why you do what you do, creating a sense of purpose and breathing new life into your work.
- Acquiring a better understanding of your community and its changing demographics, so your outreach and communications can better resonate with today’s patient.
- Lending your unique insights and expertise to potentially improve existing community causes and efforts, and to support “spin-off” causes or new efforts to positively impact the broader community.
Related: Holiday Blues: Navigating Patients’ Loneliness
Getting started
The process of fostering new connections or re-establishing old ones starts by asking the questions above. Engage your team from the get-go for ideas that align with their passions, strengths, and skills. Re-connect with your business, nonprofit, and not-for-profit neighbours. There is power in combining resources and in putting several heads together to brainstorm ideas.
Your team may be well-equipped and inspired to engage in seasonal volunteer opportunities, some of which may be related to dentistry – others may not.
Some of your team members may be particularly good at dental education in your office and can then apply those skills during visits to schools and other children’s groups and activities. Be sure to take along fun and useful “goodies” to get kids excited about taking good care of their teeth.
Donation drives for personal care items and other goods; periodic free dental days; charity walks and runs; and mission trips may be appealing to your particular team, or could be the starting point for conversations about completely fresh and impactful ways to improve the health of the communities that you serve.
Related: Social Isolation Among Older Adults Linked to Having Fewer Teeth
Using digital communications for good
Flood your website and other communications platforms with good news for a change!
- Promote your event or cause across platforms.
- Encourage your patients, readers, and listeners to get involved – as volunteers themselves (as appropriate) and/or as patrons.
- Welcome them to see you at an educational booth or exhibit as a means of “seeing the other side” of your office, the human and personal element outside of the boundaries of your practice’s four walls. You are more than your white coat!
- Keep your community abreast of updates in progress on those causes that are inspiring your team to have an impact and to be real “changemakers.”
- Create a new blog with regular updates on progress with your employee-charity runner’s training and strides toward their fundraising goal for the local chapter of a national or global organisation or a grassroots cause. You may also wish to add these updates to an existing blog. This will no doubt help your staff to power through the fundraising/training challenges and also shows how much you appreciate them! They will feel “seen” and that matters to everyone.
- Cross-promote with other organisations and businesses who are doing good. Highlight some of these partners on your website, in social posts, and other communications.
- Maintain a calendar of events on your website and social platforms. Highlight both those upcoming events that your team is actively participating in, as well as those events and initiatives that are near and dear to your heart and to the hearts of your team members. An understanding of those causes that your staff cherish can really tell you a great deal about an individual, their “story,” and what they value in life beyond the office.
- To further convey that personal touch and personality outside of the office, post videos and photos from the event and keep your community updated on how things went and the impact you are having. Follow-through also helps readers and viewers to see how their support and dollars can make a real difference, and might inspire them to partner with you on this front and to take a close look at their own organizations’ community involvement.
Remember your patients can also be a great source of highly rewarding and impactful causes. They may work for or lead nonprofits themselves that closely align to your team’s expertise, interests, values, and mission. Let technology be a positive change to further spread the word about causes that are doing good and to deepen your roots in the community.
About the Author:
Naren Arulrajah is the president and chief executive officer of Ekwa Marketing, a company that has specialized in digital marketing for medical and dental professionals for more than a decade. If you’re looking for ways to boost your marketing results, call 855-598-3320 for a free strategy session with Naren. You may also schedule a session at your convenience with the Senior Director of Marketing – Lila.