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Background
Maximising the effectiveness of your appointment system in general practice has the potential to connect patients and clinicians for timely care and create a sustainable working environment.
Objective
This article shares lessons from the Australian Primary Care Collaboratives program that can help individual practices to shape their appointment system to their needs in order to improve both access and patient care.
Discussion
Five common appointment strategies have emerged through the work of the Australian Primary Care Collaboratives: open access, book on the day, supersaturate, carve out and advanced access systems. All these systems have advantages and disadvantages and may suit different practices depending on their contexts and populations. It is helpful to measure how effective the current practice approach is in dealing with delay and delivering satisfaction. Specific approaches such as 'appointment golf and 'jeopardy doctor' may help improve system functioning. Practices should make intentional choices about their appointment system to meet the needs of their patients, staff and clinicians.
Keywords
appointments and schedules; general practice; practice management
In an earlier article1 we described how appointment delay has the potential to cause serious negative effects on safety, morale, efficiency and patient and work satisfaction in general practice. Over 7 years of working with the Australian Primary Care Collaboratives (APCC) program we have met with hundreds of practices and observed that there are a limited number of strategies used to manage demand and the negative effects of delay. There is little high quality comparative research available to support this key area of primary care. More in-depth studies in this area are needed. In the meantime, this article represents the distillation of our experience.
In this article we look at what makes a good appointment system for patients, staff and clinicians and describe the five appointment strategies we have seen through our work with the APCC program. Because it is a basic introduction to these systems, we have called this article 'Appointments 101'.
Maximising the effectiveness of appointment systems in general practice has the potential to connect patients and clinicians for timely care and create a sustainable working environment. Your appointment system sets the rules of engagement between you and your patients. It reflects your philosophy of general practice. Your system impacts on quality of...