Reducing Wait Times: NC Urgent Care & Clockwise.MD

For healthcare clinics today, engaging with patients and improving their experience is more important than ever. The competition for healthcare dollars is stiff, and one dissatisfied patient can easily affect business by sharing unfavorable reviews online.

MedAccess Urgent Care, with three locations in North Carolina, wanted a technology partner to help improve patient satisfaction and get more insight into the individual performance of each of their clinics. They decided to give Clockwise.MD a try in two of their locations. After implementing the software, they not only got the results they were looking for, but were also able to reap some benefits they hadn’t anticipated.

In this DocuTAP case study, you can see for yourself how Clockwise.MD made a big difference for this growth-focused urgent care.

MedAccess Urgent Care Averages Wait Times Under 15 Minutes with Clockwise.MD.

Client Challenges:

MedAccess Urgent Care is a locally owned, locally operated urgent care with three clinics located in Roxboro, Youngsville, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

In February and April of 2016, MedAccess implemented Clockwise.MD in their Youngsville and Roxboro locations with the following goals:

• Improve wait and registration times
• Gain insight into individual clinic performance
• Address the disparity between new and current patient registration processes

After implementing Clockwise.MD, MedAccess gained immediate access to wait time and throughput data, allowing them to identify additional areas for improvement that weren’t originally on their radar.

Projecting Wait Times with 95 Percent Accuracy

As MedAccess began implementing their new online scheduling system, they used feedback from their teams to customize Clockwise to fit their needs. This included integrating Clockwise with their EMR for maximum visibility into the patient experience. As patients register online or in the clinic, they are sorted into separate provider queues based on the provider they are seeing. This is useful for provider staff to see which patients are in the room. It also helps provide accurate wait time projections for each individual patient, helping to smooth out the process of transitioning patients from registration to clinical care. In fact, 95 percent of patients are seen either on time or early at both clinics, and average wait times are less than 15 minutes.

Percentage of patients seen on time, early, and late at the Roxboro MedAccess clinic.

Reporting on Patient Throughput and Satisfaction

For the MedAccess team, one of the most valuable aspects of Clockwise has been reporting. With detailed insight into their patient throughput, as well as candid feedback on each provider gathered via Clockwise patient surveys, they have been able to see where bottlenecks are occurring, identify staff members who need additional training, and more. Using this data, MedAccess has begun to make changes that have greatly impacted the patient experience, such as:

• Improving the waiting experience with patient-centric upgrades to the lobby spaces
• Hiring additional staff to cover heavy traffic periods, based on heat maps generated by Clockwise
• Doubling staff coverage at specific bottleneck times

Results

When asked how likely they were to recommend MedAccess to others, patients responded with an average score of 4.8 out of 5.

• At both clinics using Clockwise, 95 percent of patients are called back on time or early.
• The average wait for patients with online reservations is between -2 and 0 minutes. Most patients were seen before their actual appointment time.
• Each MedAccess clinic averages between 12 and 15 minutes for patient throughput from check-in to registration to exam room.
• In only a few months, MedAccess increased online patient volume by two to three times at each of their clinics.

According to Nate Haines, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for MedAccess, “Clockwise has revolutionized the way we conduct business in our clinics. It is simple, efficient, and easy to use. It has increased our efficiency and taken our customer service to a new level.”

Thanks Nate. We’re glad we could help.