One of the main objectives of leading practice management is the elimination of waste. There are several types of waste that have been identified: over-production (making too much), motion (of doctor, patient, assistant or machine), waiting (of doctor, patient, assistant or machine), conveyance (movement of people or objects), inventory (materials), and correction (rework and scrap). Today’s post focuses on the motion of doctors and patients.
Recently, I was in a doctor’s office where the treatment rooms are located in the corners of the office, as far away as possible from the front desk. This Doctor had the habit of walking each patient back to the front desk while talking to them. A quick back of the envelope calculation indicates that the Doctor walked about a mile every day escorting patients back to the front desk. This translates to 20 or 25 minutes of walk time. As it turns out, the office could be rearranged quite easily to reduce the walk time to nearly zero, thus saving the Doctor and the patients time and effort. This is an example of inefficiencies that are “built in” to a practice. If you look, these inefficiencies are everywhere.