Skip to contents
In This Issue:
When patients report to BWH unsure of where, when and with whom they have an appointment, Information Desk staff must search through several electronic systems, including IDX, BICS, CPE Scheduling and OR Dynamic Scheduling among others, to find patients’ appointments and point them in the right direction.
To better meet patients’ needs and enable staff to work more efficiently, BWH is preparing to implement a new system that will improve customer service. The One-View Scheduling/Patient Tracking system has been highly successful at Massachusetts General Hospital, where it was developed.
“With One-View Scheduling, staff can enter a patient’s name, and the application will pull up appointments from any major BWH scheduling system,” said Debra Rogers, executive director of Cardiovascular Services. “It’s a way to quickly and easily call up the day’s appointments for a patient.”
A trip ticket generated by the new system will be especially helpful to patients. “At the Information Desk, staff can use this functionality in One-View to print out a list of the patient’s scheduled outpatient appointments,” said Christine Wright, corporate manager in IS.
Staff will be able to view the status of patient appointments, such as when patients have arrived and when the appointment is completed.
Another component of One-View Scheduling/Patient Tracking benefits clinical staff by tracking patients in the department. “In a clinic, staff can use this system to see when a patient is in the waiting, exam or procedure room, for example,” Wright said.
When a patient reports to the clinic, the person at the front desk enters the patient name into the system. Then, a medical assistant, who brings the patient into the room, records that next step in Patient Tracking.
“Anyone looking at the screen can see that a doctor has two patients waiting, for example,” Rogers said. “Doctors can see this from their offices.”
The system also allows staff to track patient wait times in the waiting room and the exam room. Staff can request the system to send an alert if a patient has been waiting more than 10 minutes. The time the physician enters the room and the time the patient checks out of the clinic also will be recorded.
“It’s a great tool,” Rogers said. “It will produce reports that show how many rooms we’re utilizing and if we run on time, among other things, that can be monitored for quality improvement.”
The Watkins Cardiovascular Clinic, the outpatient clinic on the second and third floors of the Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, will be the first to use this new technology, which operates similar to the ED Tracking System used by the Emergency Department.
Trip tickets will be available to Shapiro and all the BWH clinics when the Shapiro Center opens. The One-View Patient Tracking functionality will be rolled out to the remaining BWH outpatient clinics after the Shapiro center moves into operation.
Staff will begin testing One-View/Patient Tracking in December.
See other Shapiro related articles this week's Shapiro supplement or download a pdf of the supplement. Workers Fitting Out Shapiro Center Wired for Care One-View, Many Benefits New Scheduling System for CDIC on the Way