Turn your waiting rooms into productive space you and your patients will love
So, a recent IBM study suggests that patients are less likely to return for health visits because they are annoyed by having to fill in repetitive paperwork.
There are a few very important points that I’ve gleaned from this study. Most people, these days, have very little reason to write anything drawn-out by hand unless they are completing a form in a doctor’s office (or, perhaps, when they apply for a job). So when you place a form before them, it’s an annoying, agonizing exercise in recalling how to write legibly for many of us cranky patients.
Then again, what if you place a couple of inexpensive, older-model laptop computers (or even less expensive desktops) in your waiting room and allow people to type and tick off check boxes when they need to fill out forms? Things may be very different.
If your practice management system permitted it, patients could likely enter their information directly into your system, saving your office a good deal of time and energy and improving the quality of your information. Even if it does not, or you did not want to set that up, you could simply print the forms they produced and re-enter what they answered. At the worst, they would be happier, the data they furnished would be clearer and likely, the forms would get completed more quickly in most cases.
In addition, when idle, these same laptops or PCs may be used to promote other services your practice is offering (such as allergy treatments, or union physical exams, etc), could offer access to medical data through your internet connection (very easy if you have a wifi network) and so forth. None of this is very complicated, to say the least. Hey, by putting together a simple web form, patients could schedule their own asthma checkup, massage or Botox appointments, and up your income without your having to lift a finger or burden your staff!
Not only that, you may get more direct feedback about your practice’s performance if you place forms on computers like this. When patients are simply killing time, they are more likely to take a minute and tell you the truth about matters that do not arise in a clinical examination.
We can go into this ad nauseum, but I’m sure you get the point. There’s lots of opportunities here. What surprises me is that so few practices are taking advantage of this already.
If you are trying something equivalent to this, would you drop me a line and tell me how it has been going? I look forward to your comments.
