Case: University Health Services: Walk-In Clinic
Kathryn Angel has been hired as assistant director for ambulatory care at Harvard’s University Health Services. By implementing a triage system, she wanted to reorganize the Walk-In Clinic.
The staff of the clinic includes 22 physicians, 2 registered nurses and 11 nurse practitioners.
Physicians : 40 hours per week, in blocks of three to four hours; in total 150 hours per week available to the Walk-In Clinic
12 hours in Walk-In Clinic
16 hours meeting patients by appointment (including 2 half-hour periods ‘reserve time’)
5 on duty at the UHS infirmary
7 on administrative and other matters
Registered nurse: eight-hour shifts, including one hour for lunch, can treat minor ailments
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As Kathryn Angel, how do you evaluate the introduction of the triage nurses into the process of the Walk-in Clinic ?
The average total waiting time was more than expected (37.5 minutes, including triage time). There were two main problems:
The triage coordinators are sometimes classifying patients as physician/nurse practitioner to maintain the flow when they feel the practitioners are backed up. So the physician’s share of patients gets increased in overload situations. The mean waiting time to see a physician was much longer (25.2 minutes) than the mean waiting time to see a nurse practitioner (6.7 minutes).
24% of all patients ask to see a specific doctor or nurse. The waiting time for triage is always the same, but patients who asked for a specific provider had to wait an average of 8.6 minutes longer.
Two of the five doctors on duty are 100% occupied with ‘walk-in appointments’. So the available MD resources decrease by 40% and fills up the waiting room. People want a practitioner who knows them well, but the aim of the UHS Walk-In Clinic is to provide the best possible care to all their patients, particularly those whose medical needs are almost urgent.
How can the waiting times be improved and the complaints be reduced ?
First of all, they need to expand the 13 nurse practitioner guidelines and they also have to define further the roles of
Physicians located within wealthier and more populous areas have slightly better access to equipment and infrastructure, but the conditions differ only slightly. Doctors are extremely rushed with a constant overflow of patients and consistently working in hot rooms with little air circulation. This is problem does not only exist in the public clinics of general physicians. Specialist physicians have a persistent flood of patients who do not need a specialist’s care, but seek the specialist because there is no general physician available.
For this interview I had the opportunity to speak to Vicky Ronald, RN, BSN, OCN. She has been working as a nurse for 20 years now and stated that she loves what she does because it is a gift and a blessing to contribute in healing patients. This interview is a brief history and description of how Vicky made it to the top of the Nursing ladder, her roles, past experience and how she integrates HIPAA to maintain patient confidentiality.
This interview was conducted on October 12, 2016, with Judy Hayes, RN. Ms. Hayes began her nursing career in 1981 as a primary nurse at New England Medical Center (NEMC). During her tenure there she held various positions ultimately becoming the manager of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU). Over the years Ms. Hayes has worked for private consulting firms and attained the Directorship of Utilization and Care Management at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center (St. E’s). In 1999 Ms. Hayes joined Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) as Director of Professional Practice and Staff Development. From 2005 through the present Ms. Hayes has been the Vice President of Nursing and Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) at the Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital (BWFH).
Patients do not need a referral to see a specialist. They can be seen by most physicians with a short waiting period of a day or more. However, they may wait hours in the office for a 3 minute consultation (Economist, 2011).
There are many components to a hospital or medical facility. All of them are necessary to have a properly functioning environment. The emergency department of a hospital is a fast paced world. You have to be constantly on your toes and prepared for whatever may come through the doors. There are many people that work in an emergency room to make it run smoothly. Techs, nurses, CNA’s, LVN’s, and doctors all work side by side to help those who are critically injured. Without all these people it would be complete chaos.
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.
Nurse practitioners have been practicing and providing care to patients for decades. They are often at the forefront of providing care alongside physicians. They are quickly becoming the primary provider choice for many patients in a world where there is a shortage of good and accessible primary care providers. As health care providers, they have prescriptive authority to diagnose, treat, and evaluate patients. Besides being health care providers, nurse practitioners are mentors, educators, administrators and
A reasonable time to keep a patient waiting at the doctors office may vary. Depends on that kind of practice they are running. Some yhink no more than 15 minutes in the waiting room and 10 minutes in the examine room. The more specialized the doctor is ,the longer the wait .
If patients were truly offloaded to NP’s by the triage system it would be cost effective based upon the service rate. But this did not happen. In fact, the percent of patients seen by NPs decreased from 40% to 28%, and the percent patients seen by MDs increased from 41% to 48% (excluding patients that requested a particular provider).
Strengths Examples and Descriptions 1. Studies prove that nurse practitioners (NP’s) have been providing equal or better care than physicians for roughly fifty years (AANP, 2013). 2. NP’s services cost less than a physician’s. The hourly cost for a NP is 1/3-1/2 of a physician’s cost (AANP, 2013).
It is not a good to keep your patients waiting to see you. That wait time should not be more than ten minutes but more than likely, it should not be more than seven minutes. The reason for the shorter wait time is that when your patients come to see you is, because do not feel well, and the longer they wait the more uncomfortable they feel. When they are uncomfortable and annoyed because they were kept waiting they take it out on the staff and even the physician. Everyone realizes that Doctors get patients that come and they are sicker than they thought, so when this happens someone should come
Once you arrive at the emergency room, you experience more waiting depending on your current condition. Some of these waits depend on: length of stay, time waiting for assessment, condition, waiting for inpatient bed, and lack of resources. Finally, when you’re ready to leave the emergency department waits can occur, like waiting for an inpatient bed or a ride home (CIHI, 2012). All of these reasons impact the growing wait times, with older adults becoming more frequent in emergency departments and the increasing population of older adults these wait times are going to continue to grow causing more harm than good, if older adults are unable to receive the appropriate care in a timely matter (Cooke, Oliver, & Burns, 2012).
I feel that Medical Assistant as well as Nurse’s need to understand where exactly the patient is coming from as far as wait times for patients. The patients have to wait in the waiting room and then be placed in a room to wait just as long as the waiting room. So, I don’t think it is fair to have people waiting hours to see the doctor. I think if we give the tablets to the patients in their waiting room they will be able to take a survey while they wait in the room. I think the physicians should know how long patients have to wait to be seen. I think the staff should have a meeting including the physicians to see how they can better
Involvement of nurses in patient care substantially improves the quality of care and reduces medical errors. A study conducted by RWJF at John Hopkins University has found significant reduction in blood stream infection can be achieved by nurses leading the
First, the scope of ailments which the nurse practitioners may treat should be broadened. This will allow the nurse practitioners to handle a greater percentage of the patients and help reduce the