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You have a system for where the incoming and outgoing mail should go, where charts should be filed and even an appointment system mastered. Yet, when it comes to organizing your workplace, how many of you think about ways to strategize and manage patient flow?
Early intervention in office management is critical to minimizing patient delays and keeping patients happy in the long run. Physicians strive to give each patient quality care in an appropriate amount of time. This means that a considerable amount of time needs to be spent early on thinking about the ways your practice can minimize unnecessary tasks and become more efficient. A simple system to practice effective office management is to have an exam room flag system in place.
If you didn’t already know, an exam room flag system involves color-coded flags that are mounted in the doorway of exam rooms and offices. This way physicians, nurses and other staff members know what is going on in each room. This minimizes the need for constant communication between staff members about the status of each exam room, prevents the possibility of having an unnecessary amount of people standing around not know what to do, and the potential that a staff member might escort a new patient in an already taken room.
The justification for using exam room flags is easily understood. Once decided, the real question then is what should you use those different colored flags for? If you choose to go with the basic colors like red, yellow and green, the easy solution is to go with what’s familiar. Like the traffic signal, a red exam room flag can mean stop the room is empty and needs to be cleaned, a yellow exam room flag signifies that the patient is ready to see a nurse and a green exam room flag says to the doctor that it is okay to go in. There are a number of different colors of exam room flags to choose from which is a good thing. This way you can cultivate your office management system based on the needs of your practice and staff. For example, you might have a small office with small needs. Two exam room flags, one red to signify a patient is waiting and one green signifying it’s okay to go in might be just what you need. If you have a bigger practice with several needs, you can also find a number of exam room flags with various colors for each. Some examples of uses may be, patient inside and waiting for doctor and/or nurse, exam room needs to be prepped and cleaned for a procedure, x-rays are being taken, and the exam room is empty. All it takes is a simple switch of the exam room flag color and staff members will be alerted to the necessary action. It’s important to note that using exam room flags is an easy way to significantly improve patient flow without having to compromise time or considerable money regardless of the colors chosen.
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