Table 5 Workshop participants’ 10 best strategies and practices to improve implementation of WTMS and help sustain their success
Best strategies | Practices |
|---|---|
1. Greater alignment | Align agendas across healthcare organizations; focus on the patient. |
2. Increased and strategic communications | Increase communications among stakeholders, communicating at the right place and time and to the different levels of responsibilities. |
3. Strong data | Establish a strong wait time management (WTM) data repository and ensure WTM data standardization; collect data about the impact of WTMS and identify gaps and goals; note that WTMS projects need to include change management, and that people, processes, and flows must be addressed. |
4. Clinical and administrative champion-partners | Clinical and administrative WTMS champions must form a partnership; the system must identify who these champions are, define and resource their roles and actions, and enable them to implement an operational plan. |
5. Clear articulations of the value proposition for WTMS | People involved in WTMS must feel that it is part of an integrated strategy and not a ‘stop-gap measure.’ |
6. Patient engagement | Engage and activate patients; make the current system dysfunctions transparent so that patients understand there are differences in wait times among physicians, and provide them with the option of being seen by the first available physician. |
7. Health system trade-offs and patients’ options | Talk about what the health system is for and what the trade-offs are for immediate access. |
8. Establish incentives | Create a system with incentives for clinicians that involves paying them for their time. |
9. Leadership | Leadership is required in partnership with payers. Make sure the ministries of healthcare are at the table; otherwise the lack of relationship with them can become a barrier. |
10. Expectations management | As a parallel strategy, ‘expectations management’ is recommended around WTMS potential and limitations. |