Reducing Length of WPH Initial and Annual Appointments & Increasing Staff/Patient Satisfaction

• Details
• Last Updated on Thursday, 10 January 2013 20:16

Name of Health Department:Catawba County Health Department

Project Title: Reducing Length of WPH Initial and Annual Appointments & Increasing Staff/Patient Satisfaction

Project Team Lead and Contact Info:
Cindi Bowman
828-695-5847
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Project Overview

Project Aim:         
We aim to reduce the amount of time our patients are in the Women’s Preventive Health (WPH) Clinic for either an initial appointment or an annual appointment by August 31, 2011.  This is important because we want to improve overall patient satisfaction for these appointment types; improve WPH staff satisfaction concerning clinic flow processes as well as timeliness  of patient appointments; improve clinic process by increasing appointment flow efficiency and decreasing  staff frustration by streamlining  required forms and other paperwork required for appointments.  We will achieve this by using QI tools learned in the QI 101 course; Lean Kaizen Event; clinic time study tool provided by WPH consultant) as well as patient  and staff satisfaction surveys.

Goals:

• Decrease the average time required for an initial appointment from 129 minutes   to 114 minutes and an annual appointment from 96 minutes to 86 minutes.
• Increase the percentage of patients that are highly satisfied from 41% to 60% as indicated on our patient satisfaction survey.
• Improve the percentage of staff that are very satisfied from 26% to 75%.

Project timeframe:
January 2011 to Current

How was the need for the project determined?
The need was based upon an ongoing desire to increase efficiency in WPH clinic.  Given the scope of the QI101 Training and group project it was an opportunity to use new skills to solve an old desire for improvement.

Does this quality improvement project link to accreditation?
Yes. The project helps the improve current systems but also provides a catalyst for staff to be trained on QI tools to improve overall quality as well as put in place continuous quality improvement rather than quality assurance.

Areas for Improvement and Chance Ideas Implemented

Improvement 1
Better organized the check in & check out processes

Improvement 2
Use of bell to signify patient chart has been processed for the appointment

Improvement 3
Eligibility person located in WPH area with dedicated office with phone and computer

Improvement 4
Organize and duplicate all posting rooms

Improvement 5
Have vital sign station in each exam room

Improvement 6
Nurse Practitioner to address BMI concerns

Improvement 7
Place problem appointments at beginning of morning & afternoon schedule times

Improvement 8
Use posting nurse to aid in checkout of select patients

Improvement 9
Give receptionist guidelines for seeing late or early patients

Improvement 10
Revised patient data sheet to remove information not needed for WPH clinic

Results

Overall Improvements

• Eliminated non-value added work.
• Streamlined check-in and check-out process
• Improvement with staff client satisfaction.

Lessons Learned:

• The highlight of our experience was learning new skills to increase quality awareness and work as a team using those skills towards meeting a common goal.
• One of the biggest challenges our team faced was accurately measuring our benchmarks and progress.  We are working towards a solution by trying to better understand variables within our appointment types and how they affect the length of appointments.
• Another challenge was finding a good mix between efficiency, quality improvement and customer service.
• We have learned to look for root causes and patterns when trying to identify possible solutions to improve quality.