Scheduling, Online
Like many families, my spouse and I manage much of our household’s bills, schedules, and activities through our phones. It’s hard to find time during ‘business hours’ to take care of things, like making medical appointments. National data show that it takes 8 minutes on average to schedule an appointment in healthcare. My personal “to do list” recently included getting our kids flu shots, scheduling an annual physical for a child, and scheduling my overdue eye appointment. The problem, though, is our offices are not available when I am. Which is usually between 4:30 am — 6:00 am.
Our family is not unique (perhaps other than going to bed early). Recent survey-based data show that 64% of people will use self-scheduling. More importantly, 63% of health consumers in their thirties or younger have said that they would switch providers based on the ability to book appointments online. Organizations that have been able to effectively adopt self scheduling have seen increases in their patient volumes. Generally, people who are able to schedule online have fewer no-show appointments as well.
63% of health consumers in their thirties or younger have said that they would switch providers based on the ability to book appointments online.
It is critical to our mission of caring for people that we engage them through digital services, and transactions like appointment scheduling is one of our first-line priorities. To realize success in this area, it takes technology coupled with operational and cultural changes. We went live with open scheduling this past summer, and we’ve already seen some metaphorical and literal wins with the program.
In tandem with our recent EHR upgrade in June, we launched open scheduling on froedtert.com for people to schedule with primary care physicians. We have added our first ancillary service with mammography as well. Our initial experience using this open scheduling has been incredibly positive. In the last quarter, we have had nearly 2,000 appointments scheduled in primary care through the web. While we previously were live with self-scheduling for appointments through our portal (MyChart®), this upgrade added the ability for individuals to schedule appointments directly from the web, including our online physician directory, without having to login. This is particularly beneficial for people new to the health network and those looking to connect with new physicians. And we have seen that unfold, as half of those who scheduled online are new to primary care, and a quarter are entirely new to Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Being able to schedule appointments easily online can free up time for our schedulers, reduce the volume on our telephone system which can then reduce the wait time to serve other people who call in, and help match any unused availability in our schedules with those who need care. Online open scheduling also complements additional new tools that we have put in place including our electronic and automated waitlist system, which notifies individuals electronically when an appointment opens up.
And we have seen that unfold, as half of those who scheduled online are new to primary care, and a quarter are entirely new to Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin.
As practices, we must continue to work on our scheduling teams, our clinical templates, and track our access to ensure that individuals seeking care and clinicians who serve them are making the most of the technology for their purposes. For physicians, it may mean that we lose some control over our schedules, but our experience data and nationwide data suggests that this is a way to optimize our access, help bring in new people with care needs when we have openings, and match our expertise as clinicians to our patients’ needs.
We will have to work hard to make sure that the scheduling experience is a smooth one. We have not historically been great at that in health care broadly. A few years ago, we did some customer research about scheduling. At that time, people we talked with would have much rather preferred longer hours for our scheduling call centers, and shorter phone wait times, over online scheduling. These folks still did online bookings for other segments of the economy. Unpacking this a bit, we will remember that at this time most of what we had available was appointment request forms, which still necessitated a back and forth dialogue about availability, often still ending up with a phone call and not markedly shortening the cycle time to schedule an appointment. With online scheduling, people have the ability to book an appointment within a few seconds. We as clinicians though must trust the system, trust our patients, and not create any barriers to having our availability open and available for people.
Our online team deserves a ton of credit for helping us get online scheduling up and running, including Katie Adam and Chris Schmidt, who redesigned our physician directory and worked with our information technology teams to build in the open scheduling ability. And a shoutout to them as they recently were awarded a 2019 eHealthcare Leadership Award for the physician directory. We recognize we still have more to do, and we have big plans, but it’s important to acknowledge our progress.
As far as my appointment scheduling went, I did it all online, first thing in the morning. I scheduled flu vaccinations through online scheduling at Children’s Wisconsin, as well as a follow-up physical. And I logged into the Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin portal to find appointments for my eye check-up. It ended up that a satellite location (WestBrook) had an earlier availability, so I took that one over my usual Eye Institute location. Perhaps I could have gotten in earlier if I had called. I don’t think that should routinely be the case anymore. Besides, sometimes those 8 minutes between 8 and 5 can be hard to find.
