Intelligent Scheduling
By Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick
Twitter: @drnic1
Host of Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist – #TheIncrementalist
On this episode I spoke to Jennifer Meller, MD (@drjen_Navimize), CEO & Founder, Navimize (@navimize) that is focusing on solving the problem of dissatisfaction for patients stuck in waiting rooms around the country.
The problem sounds simple but in healthcare as usual the devil is in the detail. Part of the key ingredients Jennifer found to building a company included the additional education and insights from going back to school for her MBA at Wharton and surrounding herself with a strong team to fill the gaps in knowledge.
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Her experience as a primary care physician treating patients informed the concept, especially as patients started rating their doctors across a range of metrics. She would receive a very positive reviews for her care but low ratings for waiting times, something that was difficult to control or manage with all the competing priorities and her desire to deliver the best possible care to each and every patient that came into her office. She always found herself running behind on her appointments much to the frustration of everyone, including herself.
Together with her co-founder they came up with a communications solutions, triggered by her experience waiting for an Uber ride, to start to address the scheduling challenges in doctors offices. Focusing on wait times and building out an automated communication platform that could send out messages to all the stake holders, doctors, clinical staff, support staff and of course the patient, to keep everyone updated on the schedule and any potential delays.
That feature alone proved to be a real crowd pleaser but they went further starting to predict appointment length based on understanding of the individual doctor, the practice, geography, patients condition and beyond. Using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence they were able to process data ingested from a variety of sources and multiple EMR’s to build a better schedule for everyone
Listen in to hear how easy the solution is for clinicians to implement and for staff to use and how they are adding features that include automated follow up details, including getting more positive reviews from the many happy patients who had great experiences but rarely provide feedback. And it’s not just easy to implement, it comes with plenty of customization features to account for differences in specialties, practices, patients and offices.
About the Show
For years Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick, has served as a voice on the impact of new technologies on healthcare, earning a reputation as a leading authority on where the future of medicine is going. Combining powers of observation and real world experience, Dr. Nick has seen many predictions come true and makes the case that innovations in healthcare can be accomplished incrementally, not just by moonshot events. Tune in to hear Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist and his guests discuss what the future of healthcare looks like, how we will get there, and what it will take to improve healthcare for all.
This article was originally published on the Dr. Nick – The Incrementalist blog and is republished here with permission.