East Cluster Meeting Minutes, November 26, 2008

Again, a fantastic gathering even despite vacation absences.

Flow

• Overall, things continue to feel smooth. No major challenges to effective flow through the day.
• We discussed what the new centralized appointing system means to our workflow. Mark and Becky explained well what the patient experience will be when they call in.
• We took advantage of Mark's presence to discuss the challenges of helping patients get from the front door to their provider. There are survey requirements of the front desk admin staff, especially for patients with various kinds of payors. This can create a backup in the check in line, unwanted by everyone. What to do about this? There is an effort to make sure there is flexible staffing available to meet demand, and there is a remodel of the check-in area in the design stage. This is a lean opportunity, if ever there was one!

Quality

• New Dashboard numbers are out. We reviewed these together and note that there is not yet an association between the current data and our recent efforts. We'll need a three month lead to see what effect our outreach is having on HEDIS data.
• We broadened our discussion about quality today, talking about how to include patient experience in our quality work. We have agreed already to include a guiding statement at the top of our standard workflow document, indicating that each of our patients should answer with an enthusiastic "Yes!" to the following:

I have one person I think of as my personal doctor or nurse

It is very easy for me to get medical care when I need it

Most of the time, when I visit my doctor’s office, it is well-organized,
efficient, and does not waste my time

The information given to me about health problems is very good

I am confident that I can manage and control most of my health problems

I feel able to give meaningful feedback to my doctor’s office about ways
things could be improved

• It is not yet clear how we should measure this. There exists already a strong effort by GHC to evaluate patient satisfaction, but the quesitons are not precisely the same. More to come on this in future meetings.