Focusing on efficiency before and after the physician enters the exam room can be key to a much better visit for the patient and less stress for the doctor. Learn how to integrate those changes with learning toolkits that apply across a wide range of private practice sizes.
A physician having more time to concentrate on patient concerns hinges on incorporating specific techniques that entail increased engagement by medical assistants and nurses.
Step-by-step instructions to optimize workflow are available to private practices at the AMA STEPS Forward® collection of toolkit resources that offer real-world solutions to common challenges in health care today. Experts estimate that physicians and their care teams can save up to five hours a day by optimizing how they work and appropriately delegating some work to well-trained staff.
STEPS Forward provides an overarching view on how to do just that with two toolkits, medical assistant professional development and implementing team-based care. The toolkits take a practice through the process of working together to identify and implement training and workflow solutions.
Practices can then choose from a collection of STEPS Forward toolkit time-saving resources that enhance your practice productivity and your patients’ experience.
Begin the day by getting on the same page
The toolkit on implementing a daily team huddle explains how to boost practice productivity and morale by gathering a few minutes before patient visits start to go over what to expect in the day ahead, special patient situations and practice improvements.
Start the visit before the patient arrives
As the names imply, pre-visit planning and pre-visit laboratory testing shift important information gathering to well before an exam room encounter. At the end of each visit, setting the next patient appointments establishes the timeline for collecting information. Checklists and pre-appointment questionnaires encourage completeness in gathering the information.
In the same spirit, annual prescription renewal saves time and promotes care continuity by using an annual comprehensive care visit to renew all chronic illness medications to the state’s maximum duration.
Reassign exam room tasks
Expanded rooming and discharge protocols detail a wide range of traditional physician activities that can be done by a medical assistant or nurse, allowing the doctor’s attention to be focused on the patient. On the front end, tasks can include protocol-based screening for conditions, updating patient history, and arranging for preventive services based on standing orders.
During discharge, staff can handle the printing and review of an updated medication list and visit summary, go over medical instructions and coordinate the next steps of care.
Cut the doctor’s documentation time
Team documentation—“scribing”—frees the physician by having team members help prepare visit notes, entering orders and referrals, and preparing prescriptions.
Meanwhile, ambient AI listening and documentation technologies are streamlining workflows, creating efficiencies and impacting physician burnout. Learn from with the AMA about AI-documentation tools as “the newest member of the care team.”
Expect these changes to require investment, a choice that private practice physicians can exercise as ultimate decision-makers where they work. Most toolkits have interactive calculators to establish savings.
From augmented intelligence implementation to digital health adoption and EHR usability, the AMA is fighting to make technology work for physicians, ensuring that it is an asset to doctors. That includes recently launching the AMA Center for Digital Health and AI to give physicians a powerful voice in shaping how AI and other digital tools are harnessed to improve the patient and clinician experience.
