"It is difficult to keep track of which patients are in which rooms, how many patients are in the waiting room, and how far the doctors are falling behind with their patients for the day. If patients were late, canceled their appointments, or the waiting room was overflowing, the doctor would be the last to know."
As an experiment, Southeast Health Center incorporated the “Check-in Tracker”, a shared spreadsheet on Google Docs, into their clinic flow which you can see a sample of below:
Image source: Google Docs Blog.
"When a patient checks in at the front desk, the clerk types “a” into the slot where that patient was scheduled. Using the “change color with rules” function, that slot turns orange to let everybody in the clinic know that Dr. Mark’s 8:15 AM patient has arrived. If the 8:55 AM patient arrives at 9:15 AM, the front desk types in “L 9:15” into that slot and the slot turns pink. Dr. Mark can look at the Google spreadsheet and type an “x” if he is unable to see the late patient or “ok” if he has time to see the patient. Patients in rooms turn green and indicate which room number. Discharged patients turn blue.
Everybody communicates in real time, because we are all signed into the same account."
References:
Using Google Docs to facilitate patient flow in a community health center. Google Docs Blog.
