| CASE: KEEP PATIENTS WAITING? NOT IN MY OFFICE | BUSN 6110/ME – OPERATIONS & PROJECT MANAGEMENT | | |
CASE
KEEP PATIENTS WAITING? NOT IN MY OFFICE
1. What features of the appointment scheduling system were crucial in capturing “many grateful patients”? By seeing patients at their “exact” appointment times, the patients were very grateful. It is rare that the doctor did not see the patients during their allotted time. The key to ensuring appointments remained on schedule was to book appointment realistically. By allotting the proper amount of time for each visit (this was tied to the services require) this kept the schedule on track. Patients are also given a specific time, e.g., 10:30 or 2:40 vice the
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If the late patient arrives to the office before the receptionist makes contact they are told that the doctor had to go ahead and take his other appointments and the doctor will have to squeeze them in. A note is made in the patients chart to document how late they were or if they had to be given another appointment time. No-shows are also documented in the patient’s record and on the third no show, a letter is sent to the patient reminding them that time was set aside for them and they have failed to keep three appointments. The letter cautions that in the future they will be billed for the doctor’s time.
4. Prepare a schedule starting at 9 a.m. for the following patients of Dr. Schafer:
Johnny Appleseed, a splinter on his left thumb.
Mark Borino, a new patient.
Amar Gavhane, 102.5 degree (Fahrenheit) fever.
Sarah Goodsmith, an immunization.
Tonya Johnston, well-baby check-up.
JJ Lopez, a new patient.
Angel Ramirez, well-baby check-up.
Bobby Toolright, recheck on a sprained ankle.
Rebecca White, new patient.
Doctor Schafer starts work promptly at 9 a.m. and enjoys taking a 15-minute coffee break around 10:15 or 10:30 a.m. Apply the priority rule that maximizes scheduling efficiency. Indicate whether or not you see an exception to this priority rule that might arise. Round up any times listed in the
I arrived at 7:45 am that Wednesday morning and introduced myself to Mandi Yanagibashi, a supervisor to the Radiology department. Mandi wrote out a schedule consisting of six different modalities within the department. I was granted one hour of observation in each area and was instructed to keep an eye on the time, as it would be my responsibility to get myself from place to place. My day was arranged as follows: Nuclear Medication (NM), X-ray (XR), Computed Tomography (CT), Ultrasound (US), lunch, Magnetic Resonance (MR), and finally CT/XR Emergency (ER).
Once you have obtained a schedule that meets the time and resource constraints, prepare a memo that addresses the following questions:
When a patient misses a doctor/nurse appointment, a follow-up or specialist appointment they are not receiving the care recommended by their doctor/nurse. This could result in the patient becoming more ill and requiring additional time off work, laying an extra burden on colleagues and bosses, there is also the risk of infecting others thus carrying additional burdens as more staff may require time of work or extra appointments. All of this holds a risk of missing deadlines, looking unprofessional and potentially disrupting the training of personnel on unit.
Moreover, the office visit length will be shortened due to the high demand of customers making it harder to provide good quality of care to patients as well . On the other hand, from the physician point of view it is predictable that doctors will change practice patterns from private offices to hospital services because the facilities pay salaries with less expectations in the number of patients seen per day. Furthermore, due to the elevated number of patients, time left for clinical documentation and record keeping will be nulle.
Scheduling Procedures. Categorize different scheduling procedures for various types of service operations, such as restaurants, hospitals, and airlines. Your initial post should include explanations and examples and be 200-250 words.
When a patient scheduled an appointment, they arrived, and now you are waiting to be seen by the doctor for over 15 minutes. Or when you have the appointment, and you have waited in the lobby for about 20 minutes pass your appointment time to be seen by the doctor, you’re called inside the patient room, and from there you are still asked to wait on the doctor for over 15 minutes.
In order to provide our patients with the prompt and excellent service they expect from us, it is essential that the following schedule guidelines are followed:
A common goal all healthcare providers share, is the desire to provide excellent patient care. The delivery of care is constantly changing in healthcare, however, the patient will continue to remain the focus of care. The success of nursing care thrives off the ability to fulfill patient needs and to maintain patient safety and satisfaction. When patients are admitted to the hospital, their need for an increase in their level of care and attention, due to the decline in their health status, and inability to preform normal daily activities of daily living. The loss of independence places the patient in a vulnerable state of mind, causing the individual to rely on members of the healthcare team to assist with basic self-care needs while in a stable and well-organized environment. A structured environment can be accomplished through the practice of hourly rounding on all patients.
When the referral is received from a physician outside the healthcare provider’s network, paper medical records relating to the health issue are requested, including office notes and test results. After the patient’s paper medical records are received by the scheduling office, the scheduler manually reviews the records for the diagnosis and reason for the referral to determine how to appropriately schedule the office visit. For example, if the patient recently suffered a stroke, the patient would be scheduled with a stroke specialist rather than a general neurologist.
Healthcare just like any other type of service industry is reliant on possessing satisfied clientele. Scheduling practices help to manage the patient flow by establishing certain guidelines regarding how late a patient can arrive, and still be seen without disrupting the patient flow
One reason some offices run continuously late is the doctor trys to see to many patients on a given day.Moreso, when this happens the payient dosen’t get the attention thay require from the physician.Running patient through
During the second week, I had the opportunity to accompany Mr. Price to meetings that he had with the managers of the nurses and schedulers. During those meetings, the managers discussed the ideal approach of how to accommodate patients who call the schedulers to acquire appointments for urgent medical concerns. There seemed to be a problem with patients taking up appointment slots when they do not have a true need to be assessed by their doctor. It was ultimately concluded that the schedulers would coordinate communication between the patient and the registered nurse. The nurse would then triage the patient’s concerns over the phone and provide medical guidance,
Another way to alleviate the overcrowded schedule is by making patient appointments for every other time slot. If a patient calls in for an
“Did-Not-Attends” (DNAs) occur when a patient unexpectedly without notifying the radiology department fails to attend an appointment (Hallsworth et al., 2015). DNAs lead to worse care for patients by delaying in diagnosis and appropriate treatment for the non-attending patient (Gurol-Urganci et al., 2013). Also, DNAs results in wasted resources, disturbs the planned work schedules which leads to frustration for both staff and patients, and increased in the waiting time for appointments (Hasvold and Wootton, 2011). Hospitals may also engage in complex compensating behaviors, such as overbooking, which introduce problems of their own (Hallsworth et al., 2015).
Upon arrival a patient should have been made aware about a delay therefore he/she would not get inpatient. The appointment itself should not be rushed. A health proffessional should have explained everything in a clear and precise manner giving patient the opportunity to voice any concern or ask any additional questions. In regards to the appointment itself, the