Back to school: 9 things to check in your Fertility Clinic after summer

Summer has a way of testing any clinic's organization. September can be a great time to assess what's worked, what's caused more trouble than expected, and what we can improve before the year ends.

September has something of a fresh start about it. We go back to our routines and suddenly realize the year is already much further along than it seemed.

But before jumping back into the daily grind, maybe it's worth asking ourselves a question: how did we survive the summer?

Holidays, staff cover, and teams running with fewer people have a curious way of testing a clinic's organization. Maybe we discovered that some processes depended too heavily on one person, that a simple task took more steps than it should, or that the project we've been saying "needs reviewing" for months is still exactly where it was.

And that's fine. In fact, summer can be a great stress test for our processes: when someone's away or the workload increases, that's exactly when we find out whether everything is properly defined.

That's why September is a good time to stop and review how we work — not to run a full audit, but to spot those small friction points we've normalized for months.

Here are 9 questions to ask ourselves.

9, because it's the number of September — and, not by coincidence, also the number that in many traditions represents the closing of one cycle before another begins.

1. Did our patients notice people were on vacation?

Of all the points on this list, this one is the most revealing — because we're not the ones measuring it. They are.

A smaller team, someone covering a role that isn't theirs, a follow-up appointment pushed back a few days: for the team, these are internal adjustments. For a patient in the middle of treatment, every call that takes longer, every new face, every explanation that varies depending on who gives it, is information. And sometimes it turns into a direct comment: "It's so quiet here in summer," "I didn't see my usual doctor today."

If our patients tell us, even in passing, that they've noticed a shift, that signal is worth more than any internal review: it means what we've been managing behind closed doors has been noticed from the outside — right when a treatment can't afford to feel like anything unusual is going on.

It's not about making sure no one ever notices the team is more stretched. It's about making sure that if they do notice, it's because there are fewer people in the waiting room — never because the care or the information has changed.

Genera Question: Do we know if any patient has noticed a change in pace this summer? And do we have any way of measuring this beyond hearing passing comments in the halls?

2. Have we discovered that someone is indispensable?

Some people seem to have a superpower: they know where everything is and always have the answer. Until they go on holiday — and then the questions start: "Where was this?", "Better to wait until they're back."

The problem isn't having people with a lot of experience. The problem arises when that knowledge exists only in their head. A good organization lets the team keep working even when someone's away: documented processes, internal manuals, and training that gives everyone access to the same information.

Genera Question: If a key person were away for two weeks starting tomorrow, could the rest of the team keep working normally?

3. Do we have documentation, or do we have a documentation system?

Having a lot of documents isn't the same as having a good document management system. Over time we accumulate procedures, consent forms, and templates, and the problem arises when we no longer know which version is current or who should be reviewing it — something especially critical in clinical documentation.

September is a good time to ask:

• Have we identified the current versions and who's responsible for each one?

• Are they reviewed regularly, and does the whole team know where to find them?

• Are we still using documents that no longer reflect how we actually work?

A document describing a process we no longer follow isn't useful — it just creates confusion. Documentation should make work easier, not become another thing to maintain.

4. Are our processes actually defined?

There's a difference between having a process and having a well-defined process. In many clinics, things work because people already know how to do them — until someone new joins, someone covers for a colleague, or a tool changes. That's when we find out whether the process was really clear.

Genera Question: If a new person had to carry out one of your core processes tomorrow, could they understand it just by consulting the documentation?

5. Does technology help us, or does it just create more work?

Digitalizing a process doesn't necessarily mean improving it. We can have an EMR system and still be copying information from one place to another, or using parallel Excel spreadsheets. The question isn't "what tools do we have?" but "are we actually using them to work better?"

It's worth checking whether the team is familiar with the available features, whether there are manual processes that could be simplified, and whether every new tool comes with training and post-implementation support — rollout shouldn't end the day we start using it.

Genera Question: Does technology make our lives easier and safer — or have we ended up just working to feed the machine?

6. Does onboarding go on holiday too?

A new team member joins just before or during summer. We quickly teach them the basics because things are hectic, and with holidays and a reduced team, the onboarding process is left unfinished. That's when they end up having to take the plunge — literally without a life jacket: learning on the fly, asking whoever's around, improvising because there's no one to properly walk them through things.

It's fine if it's just a couple of days. The problem is when September arrives and that person is still improvising because there was never time to pick back up where things were left off. Onboarding shouldn't be paused just because the schedule gets complicated — and if it is paused, it's worth actively resuming it, rather than assuming "they'll learn as they go."

Genera Question: Who did we leave swimming on their own this summer, and what do they still need to feel secure within the team?

7. And what about cryopreservation? What piles up while the team is running on minimalstaff?

Samples and the bank don't take holidays, but follow-up does suffer. With a smaller team, patient contacts about renewals or consent forms are among the first things to get paused — not because they don't matter, but because there are fewer people available.

And September arrives with a backlog of contacts: calls from June, renewals from July, decisions still hanging in August. Cryopreservation is one of those processes where follow-up can't be paused, even if the team is.

Genera Question: Do we have a clear picture of which patient contacts were left unresolved this summer, and a plan to prioritize them so they don't turn into an impossible task come September?

8. Did summer already reveal — without anyone warning us — whether we're ready for an inspection?

There's a way to test how ready we are for an inspection that doesn't require waiting for a specific date: it's called summer. When someone covers a role that isn't theirs, we face the exact same test an inspector would give us: can they find what they need and do the job properly?

If a colleague found themselves handling something unfamiliar this summer, that moment gave us more honest information than any drill. Instead of waiting for a specific date, it's worth reviewing what summer already taught us: did they know where to find the protocols? Was it clear who was responsible for what?

The goal isn't to be permanently inspection-ready — it's to make the most of the fact that summer already gave us, without meaning to, that first dry run.

9. What's in that "we'll get to it eventually" drawer?

We all have one, literally or metaphorically: the document that needs updating, the process that could be simplified, the project that stalled. They're not urgent — which is exactly why they pile up.

September is a good time to bring them up. You don't need to solve them all; it's probably better not to try. Just make a list and sort it:

Stop → Prioritize → Plan → Act

Improving an organization doesn't mean turning September into a month of massive projects. Sometimes it means choosing one or two important things and doing them well.

To wrap up: there's no need to start from scratch

Coming back after summer doesn't mean starting from scratch. It means looking at how we work with a bit more distance. Maybe some things work exactly as they should. Maybe others have been working "more or less" for a while. And maybe summer showed us something we'd never seen before.

Not everything needs to change. But everything can be reviewed.

At Genera Healthcare Advisory, we help fertility clinics and professionals review, organize, and optimize their processes — from documentation and training to digitalization, digital tools, cryopreservation management, and quality systems.

And you? What did you discover this summer that you'd like to change before next summer arrives?

What did this summer teach us?

We've put together a process Health Check for fertility clinics to help you review different management areas and identify where there might be room for improvement.

[Download the Health Check →]