Medical - more room management

Our largest clinic runs on Mondays; it's a multidisciplinary affair, with patients coming from all across the region to receive care from physicians and other professionals from plastics, dental, cra, audio, speech, social work, nursing, nsr, sleep and probably others that I can't recall. Most of these visits are scheduled by two PCC's and occur on Whale 7. This clinic uses 21 exam rooms, today they have nearly 60 patients scheduled. This is not an unusual day.

They used to track this activity with a white board. Patient's names were on one side, and all of the providers were along the top, along with room number. Scheduled times were charted throughout the grid. This board took hours to write (usually on Friday afternoons) and was very complicated to look at. With all low tech things, to view the information on the board, you had to travel to the board's location, then examine it.

About a year ago this department started tracking this real time information electronically. PCC's run a report which pipes the patient information into an Access database. Several PC's in the clinic area have access to this database which is updated in real time. They use the system to assign and track room assignments, provider locations and schedules, view patient schedules, and to track which appointments the patient has completed, which are remaining and if any have been cancelled or added throughout the day.

I would love to adapt and update this system to do fewer things with more patients. I would love to import the name of every Whale 7 patient into the system, then have room assignments issued early in the visit, immediately upon registration, really. I envision this being done by the Family Service Representatives (or whatever title they plan to give that position), but it could also be done by MA's.

We can rebuild it, we have the technology.