BUSINESSRe-engineering practice is tweaking, not starting overPractice Management. By Bob Cook, amednews staff. Sept. 25, 2006. If you feel like achieving any sort of operational efficiency in your office is a complicated, gargantuan task, you have the sympathies of Purdue University management professors Suresh Chand, PhD, and Herbert Moskowitz, PhD. It was their job to improve patient flow at an Indianapolis clinic, and it took them about two years of study to determine how. Their conclusion, after developing numerous advanced statistics-level formulas and computer simulations of practice life: As it turns out, re-engineering your practice can be less complicated than you'd think. In a report they are currently submitting for journal review, Drs. Chand and Moskowitz determined that some minor tweaks in how a practice handles registration, phone calls and appointment scheduling can create huge time savings for physicians and staff, letting a practice deliver better care to more patients in a day -- thus leaving their patients happier, and their bottom lines richer. In fact, they believe their research shows that encouraging such efficiency -- not outright cuts in physician pay and practice revenue -- is key to improving outcomes and keeping a lid on health care system spending. "What we've come to understand is that increased revenue and improved quality go hand in hand," said Dr. Chand, a professor of management at Purdue's Krannert School of Management. "The simple fact is that if a patient's clinic experience is fast and pleasant, they will avail themselves of more care earlier -- a prescription for better health." [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2006 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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