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Improving Patient Wait Times in a Doctors Office

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IMPROVING PATIENT WAIT TIME IN THE DOCTORS OFFICE
Tracey Rentas
Old Dominion University
Health Informatics
CHP485
Dr. Ann Marie Kopitzke
February 28, 2014

IMPROVING PATIENT WAIT TIME IN THE DOCTORS OFFICE
This paper focuses on the improvement of patient wait times in a physician’s office. While there is more than one cause of long wait times in the doctor’s office the main purpose of interest within this paper is a consumer’s perspective on long wait times, the use of paper based systems, and the importance of updated technology such as electronic health records (EHR) to reduce patient wait times.
Long wait times to see a physician in a doctor’s office is a problem that seems to be increasing and lowering patient satisfaction as a result. One of the top consumer complaints across the board is long wait times in the doctor’s office. Whether patients are talking about their primary care physician or their dentist, nothing frustrates people more than showing up 15-30 minutes prior to their appointment only to wait an hour or more to be seen (Downing, 2013). Long wait time to see a physician is becoming more of an exercise of frustration and it seems to be getting worse. It’s getting to the point where one might as well clear their entire day because between getting to the physician’s office, waiting for a very long time to be seen, and finally seeing a doctor, and then driving back home, it’s already a good half of your day down the drain. Often the worst part of a doctor’s visit is the long drawn out wait, camped out in the reception waiting room while in the company of many other sick people, reading the same magazines three times already. (Barrow, 2012) A great deal of time is spent in the waiting rooms for health care services in doctors' offices (Hill & Joonas, 2005). It seems no matter how early you are or what time of day it is the wait time to

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