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Behind the clock: elucidating factors contributing to longer clinic appointment duration and patient wait time
BACKGROUND: Longer wait time in ambulatory clinics can disrupt schedules and decrease satisfaction. We investigated factors associated with patient wait time (WT, check-in to examination room placement), approximate clinician time (ACT, completion of nurse assessment to check-out), and total appoint...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7836477/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33499845 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06079-y |
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author | Kagedan, Daniel Jonathan Edge, Stephen B. Takabe, Kazuaki |
author_facet | Kagedan, Daniel Jonathan Edge, Stephen B. Takabe, Kazuaki |
author_sort | Kagedan, Daniel Jonathan |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Longer wait time in ambulatory clinics can disrupt schedules and decrease satisfaction. We investigated factors associated with patient wait time (WT, check-in to examination room placement), approximate clinician time (ACT, completion of nurse assessment to check-out), and total appointment length (TAL, check-in to check-out). METHODS: A single-institution retrospective study was conducted of breast surgery clinic patients, 2017–2019, using actual encounter times. A before/after analysis compared a five-day 8 hour/day (from a four-day 10 hour/day) advanced practice provider (APP) work-week. Non-parametric tests were used, and medians with interquartile ranges (IQRs) reported. RESULTS: 15,265 encounters were identified. Overall WT was 15.0 minutes (IQR:6.0–32.0), ACT 49.0 minutes (IQR:31.0–79.0) and TAL 84.0 minutes (IQR:57.0-124.0). Trainees were associated with 30.0 minutes longer ACT (p < 0.0001); this increased time was greatest for follow-up appointments, least for new patients. Patients arriving > 5 minutes late (versus on-time) experienced shorter WT (11.0 vs. 15.0 minutes, p < 0.0001) and ACT (43.0 vs. 53.0 minutes, p < 0.0001). Busier days (higher encounter volume:APP ratios) demonstrated increased encounter times. After transitioning to a five-day APP work-week, ACT decreased. CONCLUSIONS: High-volume clinics and trainee involvement prolong ambulatory encounters. Increasing APP assistance, altering work schedules, and assigning follow-up appointments to non-trainees may decrease encounter time. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7836477 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78364772021-01-26 Behind the clock: elucidating factors contributing to longer clinic appointment duration and patient wait time Kagedan, Daniel Jonathan Edge, Stephen B. Takabe, Kazuaki BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Longer wait time in ambulatory clinics can disrupt schedules and decrease satisfaction. We investigated factors associated with patient wait time (WT, check-in to examination room placement), approximate clinician time (ACT, completion of nurse assessment to check-out), and total appointment length (TAL, check-in to check-out). METHODS: A single-institution retrospective study was conducted of breast surgery clinic patients, 2017–2019, using actual encounter times. A before/after analysis compared a five-day 8 hour/day (from a four-day 10 hour/day) advanced practice provider (APP) work-week. Non-parametric tests were used, and medians with interquartile ranges (IQRs) reported. RESULTS: 15,265 encounters were identified. Overall WT was 15.0 minutes (IQR:6.0–32.0), ACT 49.0 minutes (IQR:31.0–79.0) and TAL 84.0 minutes (IQR:57.0-124.0). Trainees were associated with 30.0 minutes longer ACT (p < 0.0001); this increased time was greatest for follow-up appointments, least for new patients. Patients arriving > 5 minutes late (versus on-time) experienced shorter WT (11.0 vs. 15.0 minutes, p < 0.0001) and ACT (43.0 vs. 53.0 minutes, p < 0.0001). Busier days (higher encounter volume:APP ratios) demonstrated increased encounter times. After transitioning to a five-day APP work-week, ACT decreased. CONCLUSIONS: High-volume clinics and trainee involvement prolong ambulatory encounters. Increasing APP assistance, altering work schedules, and assigning follow-up appointments to non-trainees may decrease encounter time. BioMed Central 2021-01-26 /pmc/articles/PMC7836477/ /pubmed/33499845 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06079-y Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Kagedan, Daniel Jonathan Edge, Stephen B. Takabe, Kazuaki Behind the clock: elucidating factors contributing to longer clinic appointment duration and patient wait time |
title | Behind the clock: elucidating factors contributing to longer clinic appointment duration and patient wait time |
title_full | Behind the clock: elucidating factors contributing to longer clinic appointment duration and patient wait time |
title_fullStr | Behind the clock: elucidating factors contributing to longer clinic appointment duration and patient wait time |
title_full_unstemmed | Behind the clock: elucidating factors contributing to longer clinic appointment duration and patient wait time |
title_short | Behind the clock: elucidating factors contributing to longer clinic appointment duration and patient wait time |
title_sort | behind the clock: elucidating factors contributing to longer clinic appointment duration and patient wait time |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7836477/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33499845 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06079-y |
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