A current research by Experian Well being discovered that 62% of healthcare employees contemplate affected person scheduling to be one of many areas hit hardest by staffing shortages. Labor gaps lead to delayed affected person care, employees burnout, further hiring and coaching calls for – to not point out snowballing extra time prices.
Confronted with wide-reaching monetary and operational ramifications, healthcare organizations should make a strategic shift in how they handle affected person scheduling. For Indiana College (IU) Well being, the reply lay in utilizing automation to deal with growing affected person volumes with much less employees. Justin Baur, Alex Nussman and Josh Brown of IU Well being’s Affected person Entry administration group partnered with Experian Well being to share how guided scheduling has allowed them to scale their operations, optimize employees effectivity and scale back scheduling errors, preserving each suppliers and sufferers blissful. This text breaks down IU Well being’s key successes with Affected person Schedule (together with some that had been surprising), as mentioned on the webinar.
“Guided scheduling helps us ship higher care, extra effectively”
Like many healthcare organizations, altering market dynamics compelled IU Well being to discover a recent method to affected person scheduling. Competitor closures led to an inflow of recent sufferers, whereas the precarious labor market demanded an answer be discovered throughout the current headcount. That answer was Affected person Schedule, a digital scheduling platform that makes use of automation to assist handy affected person self-scheduling, extra environment friendly name middle scheduling, and focused affected person outreach.
IU Well being piloted the platform throughout 52 service strains in 2023. Josh Brown, Program Supervisor for Supplier Match at IU Well being, outlined the important thing outcomes:
“We had been capable of accomplish some vital achievements to set our system up for fulfillment in 2024. We’ve booked over 230,000 sufferers by means of Affected person Schedule and 35,000 by means of the Self Scheduling platform. It’s as environment friendly as two schedulers doing related work. We’ve had a 3% improve in a single name resolutions and 16% development in new sufferers since implementation.
“Total, guided scheduling has given us a chance to rework our operations by enhancing our affected person entry and decreasing some administrative burdens. We’ve seen a discount in no reveals and a rise in affected person engagement. By leveraging know-how and knowledge evaluation, the guided scheduling platform has helped ship higher care extra effectively and successfully.”
“Name Middle Scheduling helps us reduce coaching and maximize referral seize charges.”
IU Well being’s Affected person Entry Centre helps 31 specialties, 24 major care clinics and radiology scheduling throughout Indianapolis, dealing with a complete of two.4 million calls in 2023. Discovering progressive methods to fulfill rising demand was crucial.
Justin Baur, Supervisor of Affected person Entry and Referral Administration, described how Affected person Schedule’s Name Middle Scheduling instrument improves the workflow for name middle coordinators:
“Affected person Schedule simplified processes in all our name facilities so we are able to work with extra sufferers and extra service strains than earlier than. Coordinators are onboarded rapidly and may schedule for extra service strains. Affected person Schedule builds specialty concerns into the algorithm, decreasing the necessity for subject material specialists. This will increase scheduling accuracy, and reduces cancellation and reschedule charges, leading to simpler visits between affected person and supplier.”
The referral group additionally piloted Affected person Schedule in pressing care and first care services, efficiently scheduling specialty referral appointments for sufferers earlier than they go away their major care supplier’s workplace. Within the emergency division, suppliers can ship messages to registration employees to schedule follow-up appointments. Baur says, “checkout employees can schedule sufferers’ referrals inside 3-5 minutes, as an alternative of spending half-hour making comply with up calls to achieve these sufferers.”
This reduces wait occasions, improves continuity of care, and streamlines your complete expertise for sufferers and suppliers.
“Self Scheduling does the work of two full time schedulers.”
IU Well being’s pilot additionally concerned utilizing the platform to permit sufferers to ebook their very own appointments. With Affected person Schedule’s Self Scheduling part, sufferers could make appointments on-line when and the place it’s most handy. The delicate resolution assist know-how means they solely see related calendars and appointment varieties.
Through the pilot, virtually 40% of sufferers opted to make use of self-scheduling, with 28% of these sufferers succeeding in reserving an appointment on-line, considerably decreasing the stress on name facilities. Josh Brown noticed that “round 64% of our sufferers self-scheduled throughout non-business hours, so we’re getting lots of value-add after we’re not at work. This offers us a chance to fulfill the affected person after they’re accessible. It enhances affected person satisfaction and will increase entry to care.
Greater than 35,000 appointments had been booked utilizing Self Scheduling, with none employees intervention, which Brown mentioned equates to 2 full-time schedulers. He additionally noticed that the platform helps to develop IU Well being’s affected person base and scale back no-shows:
“We’re seeing that the platform may be very new patient-focused, with new sufferers accounting for over 59% of Self Scheduling bookings. With these bookings, we’re seeing an 87% present fee.”
Guided scheduling: the inspiration of effectivity
To shut, the group defined how Affected person Schedule had minimize the time taken to safe appointments, by guaranteeing sufferers get the help they want and eliminating pointless paper-pushing.
The following steps for IU Well being are to roll out Affected person Schedule throughout extra specialties. They wish to improve uptake of self-scheduling and guarantee extra sufferers can efficiently ebook appointments utilizing their most popular technique. In addition they hope to implement location- and diagnosis-specific beginning factors for on-line bookings.
By 2025, the group hopes to introduce a single telephone quantity to cowl scheduling wants throughout the entire state. Affected person Schedule will kind a key a part of the answer by supporting environment friendly, centralized scheduling throughout 4 further areas.
Watch the webinar to listen to examples on how guided scheduling was carried out in particular specialties, and discover out extra about utilizing automated affected person scheduling to create a resilient and environment friendly scheduling infrastructure that works higher for sufferers, suppliers and employees.