Efficiency

The benefits of clinical workflow analysis

How analyzing your practice’s processes can improve efficiency and patient care.

BY DORCAS A. FIKEJS, COA, OSC, OCS

As the U.S. health-care industry continues to evolve in response to regulatory change and reform efforts, medical practices must streamline operations to keep pace.

To remain profitable, ophthalmic practices need increasingly efficient business operations while staying focused on delivering high-quality patient care. As a result, ophthalmic professionals must adopt a proactive approach to facilitating positive change in the practice by analyzing clinical workflow.

Clinical workflow analysis is a comprehensive assessment of an organization’s process or system for delivering care. It involves evaluating the flow of staff, patients, and clinical information. The analyst evaluates the steps taken and their order as well as staff performance during care delivery. The analyst further considers the findings within the context of the organization’s mission and vision and in comparison to ophthalmic “best practices” and industry benchmarks from like practices.

Why perform the analysis?

Understanding clinical workflow allows ophthalmic practice leaders to make complex business decisions, such as determining the most effective workflow design for greatest efficiency and care quality. For example, leaders may use workflow analysis findings to make decisions regarding:

• Appropriate provider and support staff volumes by number of locations, staff roles, and patient volumes;

• Effectiveness of staff training and cross-training;

• Minimum supply, equipment, and facility resources for meeting efficiency and quality standards;

• Information technology system design and customization.

Who performs the analysis?

Practice owners may choose an individual within the practice, such as a clinical operations manager or administrator, or hire an outside consultant to perform the analysis. Who is not as important as what the analyst should know, such as ophthalmic clinical operations, practice-specific processes, practice resources, and systems design.

Also, the analyst must possess the ability to:

• Identify, define, evaluate, and accurately document complex ophthalmic care workflow processes;

• Draw accurate comparisons to benchmarks and “best practices;”

• Articulate the findings of the workflow analysis in a meaningful manner to practice owners;

• Assist in implementing strategies to achieve operational efficacy.

Getting involved

During the data collection process, active participation and cooperation on the part of the staff allow the analyst to collect quality information. Unfortunately, some staff resist this data collection process due to fear or anxiety, a lack of understanding, or inaccurate assumptions regarding the organization’s motives.

Patient, provider, and staff satisfaction depend upon effective organizational systems and processes. Therefore, contributing to and facilitating successful clinical workflow analysis and participating in implementation of subsequent improvements make the ophthalmic professional a hero to:

• Organizational leaders for enhancing care delivery;

• Providers and peers for improving overall patient care; and

• Patients for effective quality-care delivery.

The job of supporting providers becomes easier because analysis contributes to implementing the most appropriate and accurate patient schedules, identifying areas for improving staff orientation and training, sharing of the workload among staff roles, and developing processes for completing tasks effectively.

Steps in the process

Here are the steps of a clinical workflow analysis:

1. Gain a clear understanding of the goals. The analyst and practice owners will discuss the workflow analysis within the scope of the mission and vision of the organization. This knowledge equips the analyst by providing context and direction for the process.

2. Identify what tasks each staff role performs, and in what order. Gather facts and determine the manner in which staff provide services. This step includes analysis of the tasks, their order, average time to complete, staff (roles) performing them, tasks dependent on other tasks, the handoff of patients, and many other key variables impacting workflow.

3. Document the findings or facts from the workflow analysis. The analyst documents findings by using knowledge and skill to recognize problems within the system, including delays, bottlenecks or backlogs in the care delivery process. Then, he or she will draw comparisons between the practice’s processes and systems employed by other similar practices (benchmarks) to support these findings. At this point, the analyst presents these findings to practice leaders and works with leaders to create a vision of what aspects of the workflow process to address.

4. Develop a plan. The analyst, practice leaders, and staff work to develop a plan for redesigning their system or process for delivering care to patients. This step incorporates best practices and identifies improvement opportunities to implement a new, more effective workflow process.

The outcome

As leaders within the medical practice foster regular analysis and modification of clinical systems, processes improve. Scheduling and staffing volumes match organizational resources, and leaders make adjustments, such as hiring, training, purchasing equipment, or acquiring resources in response to analysis results. The practice experiences minimal provider and staff turnover due to reasonable workloads and compensation. Loyal patients result from ongoing patient satisfaction, which leads to business growth.

The clinical workflow analysis expert possesses the information and industry knowledge for identifying key data to collect and track. Using this knowledge, the analyst recognizes bottlenecks and other workflow problems, making recommendations for best practices and utilizing true “apples to apples” benchmark comparisons to suggest strategies to streamline processes and align with best practices.

Ophthalmic professionals have no reason to fear the analyst or the analyst’s recommendations. The motivation behind gathering this data is to enhance patient care and foster a healthy and successful business. OP

Dorcas A. Fikejs, COA, OSC, OCS, is the assistant operations manager at Retinal Consultants of Arizona. She earned a bachelor of science degree in Healthcare Management from South University in Savannah, GA, and shares a 30-year history in the healthcare industry. Ms. Fikejs reports no relevant financial disclosures.