Reducing Patient Waiting Time for Better Patient Outcomes Step 1

Most healthcare institutions start their day with the intention of perfectly managing their time schedules. While the expected outcome is excellent patient outcome many practices often end up bringing in more patients into a schedule that is already overloaded hence requiring more time to attend to the scheduled patients (Capko, 2015). The outcome of the busy schedules is inefficiency, bottlenecks, frustration, and more waiting time for the patients. Patients are forced to spend more time in the exam room or reception area waiting for an opportunity to be attended to (Capko, 2015). For the patient things appear to be moving in slow motion.

In order to overcome the scheduling problems it is important to address the foundation of this patient scheduling problems. It may seem easy but it is more complex than many would think. It takes a lot of dedication and time to enhance the patient scheduling program and as many practices are structured it seems that no one has the time to do it. If the problem is not properly clarified and identified then it is quite difficult to come up with plausible solutions likely to enhance efficiency and remove the bottlenecks while facilitating better management of the day (Capko, 2015).

The good news is that there are better tools and innovations that can help the healthcare practice understand the patient flow and scheduling problems (Capko, 2015). A good number of scheduling systems have an ability to report problems and accurately track the patient throughout the process including the time of their appointment, time of arrival, the time to be in a specific room, seen by the physician, and the time of completion of a patient visit. By evaluating the data it is possible to gather significant information for the identification of trends and foundation of the patient flow and scheduling problems. The information gathered is fundamental in evaluating specific circumstances and making a determination on the causes of the...

The scheduling changes will start from the reception, to the examination room, to the physician’s room, and all through the entire practice facility. The objective is to align the entire patient scheduling system...…patients can virtually get into a waiting line that gives them an update of their position.
· Tele-health solutions for streamlining the gathering of records, late arrivals, and no-shows will be used.

This implementation plan will help cut the patient visit time by half and offer more convenience to patients, nurses, physicians and other personnel. With lesser time spent in the waiting rooms time wastage for the patient and facility will be greatly enhanced.

References

Brandenburg, L., Steele, G., Gabow, P., Tyson, B. J., & Toussaint, J. (2018). Innovation and Best Practices in Health Care Scheduling. NAM Perspectives, 5(2). https://doi.org/10.31478/201502g

Capko, J. (2015). To Improve Practice Work Flow, Tackle Patient Scheduling, Modern Medicine Network. Retrieved 8 March, 2019 from https://www.physicianspractice.com/scheduling/improve-practice-work-flow-tackle- patient-scheduling

Haraden, C., & Resar, R. (2004). Patient flow in hospitals: understanding and controlling it better. Frontiers of Health Services Management, 20(4), 3–15. https://doi.org/10.1097/01974520-200404000-00002

Iafolla, T. (2019). 8 ways to reduce patient wait times, eVisit. Retrieved 8 March, 2019 from https://blog.evisit.com/reduce-patient-wait-times

Zhao, P., Yoo, I., Lavoie, J., Lavoie, B. J., & Simoes, E. (2017, April 1). Web-based medical appointment systems: A systematic review. Journal of Medical Internet Research. Journal of Medical Internet Research. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.6747