Customer: Tennessee Valley Pain Consultants
Problem / Challenge: Long patient wait times are resulting in patient dissatisfaction and overall flow issues.
Proposed Solution: Establish a lean improvement team to determine causes of patient waiting and implement improvements to reduce wait time.
Methodology and Outcomes:
Team & Training: Team members attended 4-Day UAH Lean Healthcare Academy training developed a project plan to reduce wait time.
Mapping: The team created a high-level process map of four major areas: Waiting Room, Pre-Op, Procedure and Recovery. They then constructed cause and effect diagram to identify potential causes and identified communication and scheduling as key improvement areas.
Simulation: UAH Lean Healthcare practitioners developed a simulation model to illustrate impact of scheduling changes on patient wait time and to study capacity due to changes in physician and patient routing.
Countermeasures:
The team implemented the following improvements:
• Improve communication between clinic, procedure staff and physicians.
• Develop standard schedule for each physician.
• Change appointment schedule to 15 minute increments (in line with procedure process time)
Results
As a result of the activities, patient wait time decreased 34%.