Using electronic avenues: A case study in efficiency
Nurses return calls between patient encounters
Before they had a voice mail system, e-mail, and electronic medical records, the nurses at Urology Associates of Southeastern North Carolina put in a lot of overtime returning calls from patients.
"They would have to stay after hours, sometimes until late in the night, to return phone calls or come in early in the morning," says Richard Rutherford, CMPE, former administrator of the Wilmington, NC, practice.
Now when staff have time between patient encounters, they can pull up the records on the computer when they contact patients, Rutherford says.
Here is how the voice mail system works:
When a patient calls, a receptionist who has been trained on how to route the calls answers the telephone. "More than half of our patients are Medicare patients, and they get lost in the technology. We haven’t gone full force into the automated process yet," Rutherford says.
Whoever answers the phone gathers enough information to determine where the phone call should be routed. He or she explains to the patient that the nurse isn’t available and gives the patient the option of leaving a detailed message in the voice mailbox. If patients are reluctant to leave voice mail messages, they have the option of leaving a message with the receptionist.
"The patient acceptance has increased significantly over the past several years. There was a lot of resistance at first, but technology is a part of our lives and even a large portion of our Medicare population uses the Internet," he says.
Each employee of the practice and each physician have a personal voice mailbox. There is a voice mailbox for the triage nurse and for the emergency room doctors to use to call and leave information about a urology consult.
During the height of interest in Viagra, the practice created a special mailbox that included a dictated message on the drug.
The practice has an internal e-mail system that allows everyone in the office to communicate. For instance, if a nurse is processing information and needs to tell the doctor that Carol Jones has a problem with her medicine, the nurse can leave an e-mail message without having to track the doctor down. The doctor can send a reply authorizing the change in medication.
"It improves our efficiency. We have three locations, and our doctors practice at two hospitals. The doctors are never in one place for very long. We have to communicate with every electronic avenue we can find," Rutherford says.
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