CCMSD focuses on efficiency

Crook County Medical Services District (CCMSD) has been making strides in fixing the “bottlenecking” issue that was keeping the number of patients served in the Sundance Clinic each day at a lower level than the district would like. The district has also been improving the efficiency of the hospital’s emergency department.

According to CEO Micki Lyons, the district has been looking at, “What we need to do, from check-in through notifying the back that they’re ready and getting them in with a provider…more efficiently so that we can see more patients.”

It’s a much more manual process now, she told the Board of Trustees, which makes it possible for providers to see more patients per day.

Bottlenecking is an issue that was first raised a year ago, when Lyons said that she knew waiting times for clinic appointments were an issue and that she had been having conversations with staff about how to fix it.

It was not an issue with the providers not wanting to see patients, she said, but “a bottlenecking situation” caused by the ‘script’ used when booking appointments.

This script was placed under review and Lyons said additional measures would include training for receptionists, setting up minimum patient numbers per day and other improvements, the latest of which is the streamlining of the time between checking in and seeing a provider.

Meanwhile, in the emergency department, staff are working on an orientation process for every employee who will be working there, Lyons said.

The aim of this is to ensure that everyone is properly oriented to the equipment, procedures, policies and so on.

Part of this process is also to review the triage process from “door to decision time”, she said.

“When a patient comes through the door, how quickly can they make a decision on whether or not that patient needs to be transferred out or if they’re stable enough to stay,” Lyons said.