A Rapid Cycle Improvement Approach to Increase Patient Readiness at Their Scheduled Appointment Time

Background:
Patient unpunctuality negatively affects quality care. We found that 39% of patients at an academic primary care center were not ready to be evaluated at their scheduled appointment time. Our aim was to reduce this to 20% in 3 months' time.
Intervention:
A multidisciplinary quality improvement team utilized quality improvement tools and methodology to determine that patient punctuality was a major modifiable factor contributing to the care gap. Reforming the scheduling process to include a built in 15-minute early arrival was implemented for acute visits for a 2-week trial period. Based on the successful results, this was then disseminated to all appointment types for a 3-month trial.
Results:
Of the 182 patients seen during the 2-week trial period, 34 (19%) were not ready to be seen at the time of their appointment, a 20% improvement (P value

Source: Quality Management in Healthcare - January 1, 2019 Category: Health Management Tags: Quality Improvement Source Type: research