Practice Improvement » access

Waiting Room or Patient’s Lounge

theadmin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:30:33 +0000

Brunswick Heads Medical Centre doesn’t have a “Waiting Room”.

They have a “Patient’s Lounge”.

Stealing Shamelessly, we’ve recently added a TV and a couch to ‘our lounge’. We have also consulted with the young people in our Patient Advisory Group, who have been kind enough to help us get some new toys and puzzles.

(each week the newsagent brings up the latest issues of a number of magazines – really. However, I note that they spend a considerable period of time in the staff tea room before making it to the ‘patient lounge’!)

‘Waiting Room’ or ‘Patient’s Lounge’. Is it just semantics?

I defer to Jerry Seinfeld –

Waiting room. I hate when they make you wait in the room. ‘Cause it says “Waiting room.” There’s no chance of not waiting, ’cause they call it the waiting room, they’re going to use it. They’ve got it. It’s all set up for you to wait. – Jerry Seinfeld.

Appointments – getting it right

Tony Lembke — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 10:54:01 +0000

AFP – Australian Family Physician

Vol 40, (1/2) 20-23

Appointments – getting it right

Andrew Knight MBS, MMedSci(ClinEpid), FRACGP, is Chair, Expert Reference Panel on Access, The Australian Primary Care Collaborative, The Improvement Foundation, Adelaide, South Australia, and a general practitioner, Katoomba, The Department of General Practice, The University of Sydney at Westmead Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales.

Tony Lembke MBS, FRACGP, FACRRM, is Clinical Director, The Australian Primary Care Collaborative, The Improvement Foundation, Adelaide, South Australia, and a general practitioner, Alstonville, New South Wales.

BACKGROUND Only 36% of sick Australians report being able to get an appointment on the day they need it, which is poor by international standards. This delay in care may impact on practice team morale, practice profitability and patient care. The Australian Primary Care Collaboratives Program aims to find better ways to provide primary healthcare services to patients through shared learning, peer support, training, education and support systems.

OBJECTIVE This article shares lessons from the Australian Primary Care Collaboratives Program that can help practices improve appointment scheduling. We describe steps to improving control of your practice scheduling – and your life – by measuring your practice demand, capacity and delay.

DISCUSSION Demand for appointments is finite, predictable and can be shaped. Delay is waste and the enemy of good healthcare. Where delay can be eliminated it should be. By measuring practice demand and capacity, improvements can be designed which will result in reduction in measured delay and patient unmet needs, and increased patient satisfaction.

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Appointments – getting it right (536KB)

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AFP Audio: Interview with Dr Andrew Knight

The RACGP is not responsible for and does not necessarily endorse content on external sites.

via racgp.org.au

This article on Measuring the effectiveness of your appointment systems appeared in Australian Family Physician this month.

Life in the Fast Lane

Tony Lembke — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:15:39 +0000

He was a hard headed man....

“Life in the Fast Lane,
Surely make you lose your mind“

The Collins Street Medical Centre has developed a strategy that has been effective in changing their capacity to match their demand.

Why block up a 15 minute slot if all that is needed is a brief appointment for a script, a certificate, a referral or a normal result?

Andrew Knight has collected a number of variations on this idea in this article at our new sister site APCC Stories.