COVID has disrupted so many areas of healthcare, but none more than the waiting room. For patients and their caregivers, this is a welcome change. I know if I never spend another minute in a physician’s waiting room, I’d be absolutely elated. Given various COVID restrictions, most healthcare organizations had to rethink their check-in process. Many patients didn’t feel safe in the waiting room and healthcare organizations used this as an opportunity to try out digital waiting room and check-in solutions.
These changes has forced us to ask the question, why did we have waiting rooms in the first place? How have waiting rooms inserted themselves into healthcare and covered up inefficiencies? What role will the waiting room have going forward?
Shelby Sanderford, Founder & CEO of DOCPACE, is an expert on this topic given DOCPACE’s experience offering a virtual waiting room for healthcare. In fact, DOCPACE has been working in this space for many years before COVID. To better understand how the waiting room has evolved and where it might evolve next, we sat down with Sanderford to learn about her customers’ experience.
Plus, going beyond the waiting room, Sanderford also talks with us about “idle time” for a doctor including what causes it and what can be done to prevent idle time. She shares what she sees as the key to making sure the physician has a full schedule including how the DOCPACE AI bot can more effectively organize your schedule because of the wide variety of data it can use to optimize your schedule.
I also ask Sanderford how they integrate this AI bot with a doctor’s EHR and PM. Finally, we talk about how scheduling will be impacted by the move to value based care. Will physicians not care to pack their schedule as full as possible? Plus, she talks about the impact a packed schedule and empty spots on their schedule impact physician burnout.
Check out our interview with Sanderford below to better understand the changing waiting room and new ways technology can help optimize a physician’s schedule.
Learn more at: https://www.docpace.com/
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