According to Greek mythology, Asclepius was the god of medicine and healing arts, whose snake-entwined staff is still a prominent symbol in modern medicine. While many patients are unaware of this random tidbit of information, most are familiar with long wait lists and waiting room times in order to be seen by a higher power. Despite the curative powers of medicine, these temporal barriers are actually also helping patients make the most of their appointment.
Image Source: Thomas Barwick
For example, let us take a look at a new patient to a doctor’s office. To render the best care possible, patient intake forms are needed to get an accurate snapshot of a patient’s health. Demographics, past medical history, current medications, drug allergies, family and social history, and more can all influence how a doctor creates the patient’s health profile. Spanning several pages, these forms can take even the healthiest patients over 10 minutes to complete, tacking on extra time for patients with complex histories.
The next steps are to take a snapshot of the patient’s current health, which can include taking vitals, reconciling medications, and reviewing symptoms. Depending again on the complexity of past health issues, this may take another 10 minutes to complete and enter into the patient’s chart for the physician to review. The physician then may review the patient’s chief complaint in relation to the past health history, which can take another several minutes.
For those keeping track, this is almost 30 minutes, with the physician not even entering the room with the patient.
When the physician enters, a new patient consultation may take up to 20 minutes, which may include diagnostic testing, discussion of management options, and coordinating further care. Altogether, this is now almost a 1 hour wait time for one patient. Multiply that by the number of patients that a physician may see a day and you can see how finally seeing the doctor is equivalent to seeing the god of medicine himself.
That being said, there are ways to mitigate the wait times and streamline the experience of patients. With the advent of computers and the internet, electronic health/medical records (EHR or EMRs) have attempted to simplify the intake process. The constantly updated EMR system is designed to represent data that accurately captures the health state of the patient at all times. Constant updates allow for an entire patient history to be viewed without needing to track down previous medical records or relying on patient memory, ensuring that data is accurate and legible. In a study on ENT care in Alaska, EMRs helped to decrease wait times for new patients, from 47% of new patients needing to wait 5 months or longer to obtain an in-person ENT appointment to 8% of all patients.
Altogether, the next time you head to the doctor’s office and wind up stuck in the waiting room, just think of all the behind-the-scenes work that needs to happen to ensure that you have quality care.
Feature Image Source: Justin Chin
