The Hospital Should Reduce Patient's Wait Time | Here’s How

It is a challenging part for the healthcare industry to stick to the schedule. It is difficult to overcome this challenge because of unexpected emergencies, late patients, less availability of resources, and other unanticipated factors. Hospital patient management software will help overcome this challenge by minimizing patient wait time.

Does your hospital struggle to attend to patients on time? Do you have to wait for long for your patients to arrive? Long wait time impacts the hospital's image in numerous ways because it frustrates the patient, and they will start looking for another healthcare provider.

We have pointed out a few simple steps that will help healthcare professionals to follow a schedule and reduce patient wait time.

Collect Patient Information Before the Doctor's Visit:

The above tip is a simple but effective one because there is always an area for improvement. Do the health care professionals gather the patient's history and insurance details while booking an appointment? Is the doctor or physician available for the patient before he arrives?

Does the healthcare employee ask the patient to fill and send the required forms before the appointment? It is a time-consuming process to gather all the information and fill the paperwork. Requesting the patients to complete the forms beforehand and gathering the information will help to save time. Hospital patient management software will help you create and send a digital sheet to the patient and automatically update the response.

Assign Documentation Responsibility to Other Healthcare Staff:

The main focus of the doctors and physicians should be interacting with patients rather than completing the documentation. Hospital management software features like electronic health records (EHR)will help to record and track the patient history, and manage prescriptions, lab tests, and notes of every doctor visit.

Implementation of a new hospital management system and getting acquainted with it will take a little time. But it will ensure that you are not overburdened with administrative tasks and focus your time more on providing quality healthcare.

Use Alternative Forms of Communication and Mobile Queues:

Hospital management software for small hospitals implementation with an inbuilt EHR provides you an alternative option of communicating with your patients. Few healthcare providers may think of an alternative form of communication as an additional task to handle, but it enhances your efficiency and patient care.

Many hospitals use this technology to reduce phone calls or call patients at their callback number. It is a perfect tool; to respond to customer queries immediately which made the patients feel valued because they have better access to their doctors.  

Implementation of hospital patient management software with mobile queues will help to decrease the patient wait time. It is an efficient tool to let the administration know if the patient is running late. Your hospital can introduce a virtual waiting line that informs the customer about their schedule, and they can grab a coffee until their wait time.

Create a Strict No-Show Policy and Late Arrival:

Patients who do not show up or arrive late for their appointment hampers the schedule and affects; subsequent patient appointments. It is essential to have a no-show or late arrival policy and abide by it. You can set a cut-off time for appointment delays, and if they arrive late, you can cancel the appointment, and they will have to reschedule.

Cloud-based hospital management software will help track the patients who regularly offend your policies, and you can start charging them with late or cancellation fees. Before you implement such a policy, it is crucial to communicate with your patients orally and with a written note and amplify patient experience with hospital management software.

This strategy sounds a little strict right? But you can give a levy or exempt such patients during the grace period and remind them to follow the schedule. Following the scheduled time will help you to be more punctual and assist patients at the time allotted to them.

Spot the Schedule Spoilers:

It might be a challenge for hospitals to spot the reason for the late schedule. Hospitals can create a survey form with Cloud-based hospital management software to track the patient's journey from entry to exit. The survey can have the following questions:

• How much is the average time spent at the reception area and the doctor's cabin?
• How much time does it take on every visit?
• How can they improve the services?

As you use the online hospital management system, the survey feedback automatically updates in the software. We will recommend you share the form with different patients on various days and times to get a clear picture of the operations. The feedback approach will show your patient that you care about them and want to improve the services.

Prompt and Embrace Telemedicine Solutions:

Hospital management software features like telemedicine are a powerful tool that prevents no shows, late arrivals and reduce doctor visit time. Additionally, telehealth services help hospitals provide treatment at a patient comfort zone and reduce their traveling and waiting time.

Conclusion:

It will be a difficult challenge for healthcare providers to have zero waiting time. But the implementation of a hospital patient management software will help to reduce it.  Long waiting time does not only hamper the patient experience; but also a reminder to improve your productivity or lose; patients and revenue.