Another idea

I had another idea to help solve my exam room challenge.

I could assign every service with a group of core rooms on a daily basis, and make another group of rooms 'flex' exam rooms. When a service has used all of their normal rooms, they can use a flex room if they have a patient. Flex rooms can only be used when all of the non flex rooms are already in use.

This would take little or no maintenance, unlike my two other plans. A self sustaining system could be set up easily enough. This could also be combined with my daily assignment system. In a sense, it's a hybrid of my other two ideas.

I could start by assigning every service with one room per scheduled provider. That includes social workers, nutritionists and nurses. All other rooms are flex. Tickets for flex rooms can be kept at the front desk and need to be returned when those rooms are no longer in use.

There is some vulnerability to gamesmanship since the power to claim rooms is decentralized during the day. PCC's might 'forget' to return flex room tickets, PCC's may room families immediately rather than letting them linger in the waiting area (this is not necessarily bad, considering our waiting room situation.)

This system reminds me of the JLA and Avengers structures through the years: a small core who access reservists depending on the situation. Heck, it's similar to the military's structure, not to mention police and fire departments across the country. The biggest difference, of course is that in my case, it's a resource and in the others it's personnel.

The best thing about this, is that we could start immediately. I don't need a Pathways report or electronic white board to make it work. It also doesn't require adding a substantial responsibility to any one job, and isn't dependant on any one person to make it work (once it gets rolling).