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Transforming Health Care Scheduling and Access


“How can we help you today?” Each of us would like to hear these words when seeking health care assistance for ourselves, for our families, or for others. It should not only be our wish, but our expectation. Health care that implements a “How can we help you today?” philosophy is care that is patient centered, takes full advantage of what has been learned about systems strategies for matching supply and demand, and is sustained by leadership committed to a culture of service excellence and continuous improvement. Care with this commitment is feasible and can be found in practice today. Yet it is not common practice. In 2001, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) landmark report Crossing the Quality Chasm identified being timely as one of the six fundamental properties of high-quality health care—along with being safe, being effective, being patient-centered, being efficient, and be- ing equitable (IOM, 2001a). Progress has been slow on many dimensions including programs to design, implement, and share innovative scheduling and wait time practices in order to advance the evidence base and create standards and accountability. The culture, technology, and financial incentives at work in health care have only recently begun to heighten awareness and attention to the issue that delays are often not the result of resource limitations but more commonly are the product of flawed approaches to the scheduling process and poor use of the full range of available resources.
978-0-309-33919-3
NONE
Healthcare Management
English
2015
1-155
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