OET Listening Parte C: Improving Efficiency in Healthcare

Hi everyone, my name's Dr Hubert Johnson

and I've been asked to speak to you about my experiences in the healthcare industry

concerning something that affects all health professionals, improving efficiency.

It seems to be a given these days that practices will struggle with a lack of efficiency.

We've actually found that this expectation in and of itself can reduce efficiency and increase delays even further.

In a recent survey, when patients were asked why they arrived late to their appointment,

30% said that they had assumed that the previous appointment would run long.

Patients expect to be kept waiting

and, to some extent, we expect that patients will be kept waiting.

And so the first thing we need to address is our attitudes and the attitudes of our patients.

So let me start by telling you about the efficiency I observed in a practice I visited a couple of weeks ago.

At this practice, patients could not make appointments online,

but they could either phone up or make an appointment in person.

There were never more than two receptionists working in the morning,

and the practice generally scheduled 80 appointments each day.

Patients who were not attending a follow-up appointment were required to make their appointment on the day of.

Can you imagine what that practice was like in the first couple of hours they were open?

The receptionists were inundated by calls and walk-ins trying to schedule appointments.

As you can imagine, patients who had seen what the practice was like in the morning

expected that if they didn't have the first slot of the day, they'd be delayed by at least 10 minutes.

So naturally they arrived to their appointment 10 minutes late.

One of the most important things you really must address in your practice in order to improve efficiency

is the way you present your practice to patients.

If they believe that you were always running late, guess what?

They'll be running late too.

Now, let's think for a moment about what needs to be done on the patient's end before an appointment can take place.

You might be thinking that there are only two steps to the process.

One, the patient books an appointment,

and two, the patient arrives at the practice in time for their appointment.

Well, we healthcare professionals often forget that there's actually a step that comes before this.

Firstly, the patient must decide that their issue is significant enough to warrant an appointment.

So, about a decade ago, my practice was really struggling from a lack of efficiency.

I was working extremely long hours to try to accommodate everyone,

and I was becoming increasingly frustrated with conducting appointments that didn't seem strictly necessary.

I got to thinking about how I might be able to help patients to reconsider their initial assumption when booking appointments

and to treat minor issues at home.

At the same time, I did not want my patients to feel unsupported.

I decided that I would begin to give weekly presentations in the evenings about self-care.

As I tended to see a multitude of patients coming in for similar issues that they could actually treat themselves,

each week I focused on a different common theme.

The presentations lasted for just one hour,

but I found that they resulted in seven fewer unnecessary appointments each week.

These days, of course, I no longer have to give a physical presentation.

Thanks to modern technology, I simply upload instructional videos to our practices website.

We also email these videos out to patients periodically.

We can and should make use of technology as a tool in our practices to help us improve efficiency.

However, it's important to note that while many, perhaps even the majority of your patients,

will be capable of using technology to arrange their appointments.

There are many people uncomfortable or unable to use technology,

so you must always make sure that these patients are accommodated too.

Providing your patients with more options rather than replacing old options is often the best practice for improving efficiency.

Now let's move on to look at a practice that used technology in a surprising way.