Officials at Windsor Regional Hospital are celebrating a dramatic cut in wait times for its fracture clinic.
The baseline wait time for outpatients was 42 minutes back in August 2015. That's how long a patient can expect to wait from the time of arrival at the clinic until they see a physician. Now, the wait time is 21 minutes.
The hospital credits the work of its Standardization and Optimization Process team. It collected data to understand how long each procedure takes per patient appointment. Once it had the information, it scheduled a grid to manage how many patients are booked for the clinic, rearranged equipment so staff could find it easier and made it easier for patients to get to their appointments.
The hospital says back in August 2015, 75% of patients felt positive about the amount of time they spent in the clinic. More recent surveys indicate that percentage is now up to 94%.
The team is now working to cut the wait time to 20 minutes in 2017.