Staff to be freer for customer service
Not content to rest on their laurels after implementation of a cutting-edge outpatient tracking system, Parrish Medical Center patient registration manager Linda Lilleboe, RN, MSN, and business office director Christine Rich, MHA, are looking toward future enhancements of the process.
"Our goal is [improved] customer service," Lilleboe says. In the planning stage is the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) that will allow registrars to be more responsive to patient needs and smart cards, with photographs, that patients can use to sign themselves in to the outpatient tracking system.
With the cards, the check-in process would require "very little human intervention," she notes, freeing employees to be more proactive in providing customer service. "Instead of the patients stewing [about wait time] and coming to us, we will go to them. We want to get away from the squeaky-wheel’ syndrome."
With the PDAs, staff would have constant access to all the information in the outpatient tracking system, Lilleboe says. "[The names of] patients who have been waiting more than 15 minutes would be highlighted in a certain color." Using the PDA to access the patient’s current status in the system, an employee could go to a person who’s been waiting and explain what’s going on.
Smart cards will be implemented in January 2004, followed by a six-month marketing campaign to familiarize customers with their use, she adds. June 2004 will see the use of PDAs for customer service and the beginning of self-registration, Lilleboe notes. Eventually, she explains, either a personal identification number or some form of biometric identification will be used along with the smart cards. With that combination, Lilleboe adds, "we could look at a future of registration kiosks, where certain patient types could utilize this accelerated registration process."
Also in the works, is fax management, where-by faxed orders — prior to or on the date of service — will be scanned directly into the computer and attached automatically to the patient name in the tracking system check-in process. "Therefore, when the registrar takes a patient into the registration room, the scanned [order] is electronically attached," Lilleboe says. "This will open the process for patient electronic signatures — a complete front-end scanning process [that will include] orders, insurance card, driver’s license and consent."
To assist with Local Medicare Review Policy issues, she notes, the programmer will set up the system so that the hospital’s coding department can view the scanned orders — along with the registrar — and code them before or during the registration process.
Except for the electronic consent, Lilleboe adds, the front-end scanning process was expected to be in place by this month.
Not content to rest on their laurels after implementation of a cutting-edge outpatient tracking system, Parrish Medical Center patient registration manager Linda Lilleboe, RN, MSN, and business office director Christine Rich, MHA, are looking toward future enhancements of the process.
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