Resource Scheduling Versus Appointment Book Scheduling Within A Medical Environment
Most physicians have a working style that determines how they want their appointments scheduled. Typically, the number and type of appointments a physician sees is based on their specialty. For example, some physicians see two patients at the same time lasting 30 minutes, others may see one patient at a time every 15 minutes and some clinics schedule many patients together.
In addition to the physician’s working style, they often have special “preferences” for their schedules. Some types of appointment preferences are: limiting the number of new patients that can be scheduled; reserving certain afternoons for surgery; scheduling certain types of appointments only in the morning; reserving appointment time for urgent appointments.
Resource scheduling takes into account the appointment type, the physician’s special scheduling rules, and the patient preferences to present time(s) when the appointment can be scheduled. In addition, resource scheduling coordinates the schedule for multiple resources such as physicians, rooms, equipment, technicians, nurses, and anything else that is required for the appointment time slot.
Appointment book
Appointment book scheduling does not account for the scheduling rules and presents the physician’s schedule allowing the scheduler to book the appointment in any available slot. Only schedulers trained on the physician’s preferences will know how to analyze the appointments to book the patient correctly.
With Appointment Book Scheduling
· Schedulers must have extensive training to meet the physician’s requirements. Temporary help cannot be used effectively.
· Appointments can be easily booked into wrong slots
· When multiple resources are involved, they must be scheduled separately.
With Resource Scheduling
· Newly hired and temporary schedulers can be scheduling immediately.
· The schedule can be optimized to maximize the number of patients seen.
· The schedule can be optimized to reduce patient wait time and improve patient satisfaction.
· Multiple resource schedules with their own rules and preferences can be coordinated to make sure all the resources are available at the correct time for the appointment.
· Scheduling is as easy as identifying the patient and selecting the appointment type, the software locates the appointment times and presents them to the scheduler.
Not any Resource Scheduling software will provide optimal benefits. When selecting a Resource Scheduling Software, be sure the software includes the following features:
· Ability to have unlimited resources. You should be able to define any type of resource.
· Ability to have unlimited number of schedule rules. You should be able to define different rules for different days of the week or month and different rules for different times of the day. A good system will allow you go define the scheduling rules by effective date.
· Ability to define advanced “preferences” such as how many and when a specific appointment type can be scheduled.
· Ability to block holidays and meetings quickly. A good system will allow you to enter holidays once and have them affect all resource schedules. A good system will allow you to define the holiday/meeting blocks by effective date.
· Ability to block personal time, such as meetings and vacations.
· Ability to define an unlimited number of appointment types. Appointment types can be for a physician visit, a test, a clinic, surgery, etc…
· Ability to define for an appointment type, the duration of each part of the appointment. A good system will allow you to define different durations for different physicians as they often work differently.
· Ability to define multiple resources for an appointment type. A good system will allow you to coordinate resources at the same time or sequentially. For example, schedule a technician, equipment, and room for the first part of a test, then wait one hour, and schedule a different technician equipment and room for the second part of a test.
· Ability to force book an appointment when it is necessary to see a patient outside of a normal schedule or when a time is fully booked. A good system will allow for a password.
· Scheduling should be as easy and based on the appointment type and scheduling rules only.
· Ability to enter patient preferences, such as day of week and times they prefer to be seen, and then present available appointments that match.
In summary, Appointment Book Scheduling is error prone, selecting appointment slots manually results in overbooks, unused times, reduced efficiency and reduced patient satisfaction. Resource Scheduling solves these problems and provides great benefits but is only effective if the system chosen is flexible, allowing you complete control over your schedules, and allowing the patient preferences to be considered.
Tags: appointment book, appointment schedule, appointment time, appointment type, coordinates, equipment technicians, extensive training, first glance, intuitive approach, medical environment, multiple resources, patient preferences, physicians, present time, resource scheduling, scheduler, schedulers, temporary help, time slot, urgent appointments