Gwinnett County WIC Achieves Goals with QMATIC

Gwinnett County WIC in Lawrenceville, Georgia is a WIC branch within the East Metro Health District and provides nutrition education and supplemental foods to low income families who are at risk for nutritional deficiencies. One of 19 Georgia WIC districts, East Metro Health District has seen a tremendous participant growth rate of over 12% each year for the past 10 years, and generates the highest number of WIC participants and service expenditure in the entire state.

The challenge
Cathy Staples, Clinic Administrator of the Gwinnett County Public Health Services, knew she had a waiting and lobby flow management problem as her staff tried to serve the growing numbers of participants with the same space and processes. In this lobby, the participants experienced long wait times, a noisy and crowded environment and insufficient information as to when they would be called next. The former procedure went as follows:

• Two receptionists at the front desk greet and oversee the participants entering their name on sign-in sheets
• Two staff 'runners' equipped with Walkie Talkies patrolling the 16 service counters to notify the receptionists which station and category of service has become available
• The receptionist examines the sign-in sheets to find the longest waiting participant that matches the category of service now available and reports the name back to the runner
• The runner enters the lobby, calls out the participant name, locates them and escorts them to the correct service station
• Participants involved with multi-step visits were sent back to the waiting area to start the process over again

The solution
Associates at East Metro Health wanted to automate the arrival and call-up process to create a more orderly waiting area. They also wanted to streamline the overall participant visit to better account for the service level and staff productivity. The new process consists of a Qmatic Solution, which includes QWIN™, Q-Welcome for both of the receptionists, Q-Next at each of the 16 service counters and several Q-Monitors located throughout the waiting area.

Automated entry process
When a participant arrives, they are greeted by the receptionist who enters them by category into the Qmatic system. Two identical WIC tickets are printed; one is attach to the participant’s folder and one is handed to the participant. The receptionist uses Q-Welcome to record additional information about the patient such as date of birth, number of children and other necessary data that staff will need to know when servicing this participant.

Computerized call-up system
When a service counter staff is available, they press "next" on their Q-Next software. This signals the Q-Monitor to display and announce the ticket number that was automatically selected to match the criteria and category for that service station. The participant then proceeds to the counter number shown on the monitor and posted above the counter space.

"QMATIC has helped us to automate many manual and time consuming processes. The participants are provided the information they need to move themselves through the system with ease but in the order we choose. The wait time has decreased, the staff has become more efficient and the participants are happier. The reports give us the proof we need to get our staffing situation exactly as we need it. It also assists in conforming to HIPAA standards." So says Sheila Fultz, the Director of Clinical Operations in the East Metro Health District. She also oversees five satellite locations, a majority of which have QMATIC.

Streamline multiple-service appointments
Once the service transaction is completed, the service counter staff records the type of service conducted and either closes out the ticket number for completion of visit or transfers the ticket number to the next service area. The folder and participant now move to the next round of transactions until the overall visit is completed.

The result
With Qmatic, arrival entry and call up for service is automated and allows the participants to move through the service areas themselves and helps to increase processing capacity. With an average of 350 single visits a day, the average wait time dropped from 1 hour to 30 minutes in the WIC program and from 2 hours down to 30-45 minutes in the Health department programs. Management can account for every participant in each phase of their visit and knows real-time staff productivity. With the Qmatic management screens, Cathy can monitor the lobby from her office and is notified of all queuing situations that need immediate attention.

Qmatic solution also provides senior management with statistical information that identifies arrival patterns, wait and service times, participant needs, and details of the entire WIC appointment process from arrival to departure. This data is used for establishing funding requirements for additional staff and resources.