Technology Integration Results in a Professional and Efficient Patient Access Department
Fauquier Hospital, located about 40 miles southwest of Washington D.C., is an 86 bed acute care hospital serving a rural/suburban community. Established in 1954 by a group of community volunteers, Fauquier Hospital is a not-for-profit community organization fully accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO).
The situation
Melissa Finley, the Director of the Patient Access Department at Fauquier Hospital, supports and encourages advancing technologies that help the hospital to be more efficient and ease patient anxiety, which is why when she learned about Qmatic at a healthcare convention, she began wondering if it were possible to combine her existing technology with the queuing and reporting capabilities that Qmatic had to offer.
The Patient Access Department had been using PeopleAlert™ Glowster patient paging technology from JTECH Wireless Solutions to queue and call waiting patients. Finley and the patients at Fauquier Hospital enjoyed the uniqueness of the pagers and wanted to continue their use (they ensured that patient names were never called aloud, providing total privacy: a high priority for Finley and her staff) but the time it took to admit patients and the wait times were significant and therefore unacceptable. Also, wait times were tracked manually: a process that was quickly becoming cumbersome.
Ideally, Finley wanted to combine old technology with new to create a customized approach for patient care in the Patient Access Department.
The solution
In response to Finley’s inquiries, Qmatic and JTECH collaborated on and developed a solution that integrated the JTECH pagers with Qmatic’s Patient Flow Management software solutions.
The New Process
Although hospital employees continue to greet patients and provide them with a JTECH PeopleAlert™ Glowster pager, they now also enter each patient into the Qmatic system, which simultaneously adds them to the queue and notifies the admissions registrar of their presence. The patient then waits until the pager is activated, at which time he or she is directed to the next available clerk who is prepared with all relevant information, thanks to the Qmatic software.
Statistical Information Collected
The Qmatic Patient Flow Management software provides Fauquier Hospital with statistical information that identifies patient wait time, service needs, and the time it takes them to move through the admissions process. The statistical information is available on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Finley looks at the data each day and keeps monthly reports.
Improved Traffic Management
On average, Fauquier Hospital serves 6,500 patients every month. Finley’s manual calculations indicate that 90% of her patients are admitted within 0-6 minutes, which she considers a good percentage; however, with Qmatic, she hopes to improve that number. She believes that will be easily accomplished since she now knows when her registrars are getting backed up due to high patient traffic.
Management Alerts
With Qmatic configured to notify her when there are six or more patients waiting, she can neutralize any potentially chaotic situation by sending another employee to help, or even stepping in herself until the traffic slows to a manageable level. Finley is also notified when a patient spends more than ten minutes with a registrar: a maximum time that Finley feels is necessary to sufficiently register someone. If the limit is reached, she knows that either the employee or the patient is experiencing a problem that requires further attention.
Unexpected results
Finley expected the admissions process in her department to undergo some foreseeable changes after incorporating the Qmatic system, but she and others were surprised by some unexpected results. “Fauquier Hospital, over the last five years, has begun to appreciate the front entry experience, which has a direct affect on accounts receivable. If bad information is gained at entry, then it takes longer to get paid.” The more reliable the information collected during the admissions process, the more likely the hospital receives payment for services in a timely manner.
Additionally, there is the unexpected new feeling of employee empowerment. With immediate access to complete information when attending to a patient, employees are feeling more professional and better able to address a patient’s needs. Finley believes that this, in turn, sets a positive tone for the entire hospital experience, easing patient anxiety and increasing patient confidence.
“We hare happy with the results so far and feel Qmatic was a desirable addition to our technology here at Fauquier. I can’t honestly say what the actual return on our investment has been. But I think it was a fairly reasonable purchase, considering that out operation runs more smoothly and professionally, and this affects the entire hospital in a positive way, which is priceless."
"My employees love Qmatic. They feel much more professional and prepared. They feel confident in getting the correct information up front. I had no idea that Qmatic would help them be so prepared.”
-Melissa Finley, Director
Patient Access Department
Fauquier Hospital, Warrenton, Virginia