Two of the biggest challenges for healthcare clinics are treating patients and managing their wait times with a strong visitor management solution. Clinics without a proper patient queue management system often have significant wait times, leading to irritated and frustrated patients. Wait time is a common patient complaint, ironically, patients themselves frequently cause delays. Either they arrive late, or their documentation is incomplete, leading to delays in seeing a healthcare provider. If you frequently have a large number of patients sitting in your waiting room for long periods, it’s time to consider a better approach to waiting line management. QLess appointment scheduling software can improve efficiency, save time for both staff and patients, and provide a better patient experience. In a recent study, "83% of patients surveyed said communicating wait times and delays lessens their frustration."
Best Practices for Managing Wait Times
Our best tips to manage and reduce wait times include:
- Leverage a cloud-based platform to gather information and communicate securely with your patients
- Collect patient information before the appointment time
- Facilitate ease of communication via text and voice calls, letting them know exactly where they are in the queue.
- Train staff to properly use your systems. Improper use or lack of training can cause more delays.
- Monitor wait times regularly to monitor and address any potential problems.
- Ensure open, honest communications about unexpected delays.
![Man waiting in a queue at a clinic](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65f0310651a1a69da629bfb3/65fec68af17be2404e5a297e_man-waiting-queue-clinic.avif)
Adopting a new visitor management solution for clinics will help improve the patient experience, leading to better patient retention and reviews. Cloud solutions are especially beneficial because they easily integrate with patients’ smartphones, tablets, and computers. Improving the patient journey also helps clinics provide better care, a waiting line management system also makes it easier to handle walk-in appointments, as staff can quickly reschedule around appointments that are already scheduled.
Seven Advantages of Using the QLess Patient Visitor Management Solution for Clinics
Adopting QLess at your clinic can improve your processes and patient flow in several ways:
- Patients get real-time updates that allow them to know exactly when to arrive for their appointment, and they can communicate if they will be late.
- Those real-time communications allow clinic staff to manage both on-time arrivals and no-shows. No-shows cost clinics money, and the QLess system helps replace no-shows with a virtual waitlist.
- Managing wait times decreases the number of people waiting in the waiting room.
- Healthcare facilities can spend more time delivering better care rather than managing schedules.
- The system provides analytics to help improve the process and identify inefficiencies.
- You can use QLess to send out short surveys that allow patients to leave reviews and share them with their networks.
- A proper patient queue management system for clinics can reduce patient wait times by up to 35%.
Providing quality healthcare is challenging enough without adding waiting line management issues to make your staff’s work that much more difficult. Let us show you how to serve your clients with a better patient visitor management solution so you can focus on what you do best.