What are exam room flags?


You have probably seen them mounted on doorways of a few health care offices.  If you are wondering whether exam room flags are just great door decorations or actually provide a service, you’ve come to the right place.  Keep reading for information on what exam room flags are and how they can help improve the efficiency of your practice.
Those plastic color-coded exam room flags are actually visual signifiers for patients and staff.  They help provide a service to hospitals and health care practices by quickly informing staff members of what’s going on in each exam room.  This means that by taking a look at the color of the exam room flag, doctors and nurses know immediately what action they need to take next.  Whether it’s letting the next patient in, getting the room cleaned and prepared for the next patient or alerting the doctor that the patient is ready to be seen, exam room flags are an easy way to identify what’s going on in each room.

How is this a valuable resource for offices?  There is a lot of waiting time involved when visiting a doctor’s office.  For example, patients wait in the waiting room to get seen then they go to another room to wait again.  Everyone knows that this is an inevitable consequence of a routine visit.  However, this normal part of appointments can easily become exacerbated when a busy schedule leads to backed-up waiting rooms and confused staff members.  If there is no way to alert staff that the room is open for the next patient, for example, then a bottleneck in patient flow is an accident waiting to happen.  And if no one knows who is in what room, how do you prevent staff members from accidentally walking in on a patient?  The surprising thing is that you won’t have to waste valuable time in staff training, setting up a complicated system or pay a ton of money to get your office in order.  The remedy for long patient wait time, which also increases patient privacy and time management are creating a visual status indicator like exam room flags that is simple, affordable and easy to install.

So what are exam room flags?  They are a color-coded system that comes in a variety of colors, styles that can be swung out and that gives you the assurance that your office will be run in the most efficient way possible.  Just mount exam room flags to the outside of each room, and you and your staff will immediately know what they need to do next.  Whether this means the room is empty and ready to be cleaned or there is a patient in the exam room waiting to see the doctor.  The bottom-line?  Exam room flags will save you precious time not waiting and wondering who’s in what room and in the end will save valuable time for your patients.