Streamlining the Patient Journey: Visit

The patient journey has become a hot topic as of late, with practices everywhere focusing on providing patients with a satisfactory experience. There are three parts in the patient journey – pre-visit, visit, and post-visit. Let’s focus on the visit portion of the journey and how best to streamline this process for your patients.

Why is the patient journey important?

By prioritizing the patient journey, practices can better understand the patient experience and explore ways to improve it by creating an experience that addresses the unique needs of patients and improves health outcomes. Through these efforts, care is made more efficient, which also helps to lower healthcare costs.

As practices work to streamline the patient’s journey, increase their staff’s efficiency, and improve communication between provider and patient, patients become more engaged with their care process. This leads to better health outcomes which is, of course, the ultimate goal of healthcare.

What happens during the visit portion of the patient journey?

The visit portion is where the bulk of patient care takes place. When an in-person visit is scheduled, the patient will arrive at the practice and check in at the front desk for their appointment. Typically, they will sit in the waiting room for some time, often filling out paperwork, until they are called back by a nurse or medical assistant. That individual will check the patient’s vitals, review their history and medications, and get a clear idea of the purpose of the visit. From there, the patient will wait in the exam room until the provider comes in for the examination, diagnosis, and creation of a treatment plan. When their time with the provider is complete, the patient will go and check out before leaving.

If a telehealth visit is scheduled, each of these tasks will still need to take place, but they will happen remotely, either by phone or through the telehealth application. Steps such as gathering vitals may need to be self-reported by the patient or could be skipped altogether.

How can you streamline the visit process?

When optimizing the patient journey, the ultimate goal is always streamlining the process to make it as convenient as possible for your patients. Often, in doing so, you will improve your practice’s processes as well.

1. Audit your practice workflow to determine what can be simplified and improved. Wherever unnecessary steps exist for your staff or patients, eliminate them. If something can be automated, implement that solution.
2. Streamline documentation. Take steps to ensure that you can adequately complete your documentation while still giving your patients the attention they deserve. Consider implementing a voice-recognition software so that you can speak your documentation while providing patient care.
3. Utilize telehealth. Today’s patients are looking for convenience. Be sure to provide the option for telehealth wherever it makes sense. Choose a telehealth solution that seamlessly integrates with your EHR and that fits well into your existing workflow.

Optimizing the patient journey is an important task in healthcare today. The benefits of doing so create a strong return on investment for your practice. This is why MicroMD offers several solutions to help in streamlining your processes.

To learn more, visit our Solutions Central page or call 1-800-624-8832.