Access and Continuity

The foundation to achieving Quadruple Aim outcomes is patient-centered access to the care team. With the changing health care environment and increased need for access to care and information, care teams are struggling to effectively manage patients’ acute, chronic, and preventive care needs. In response to the varied demands, health teams have focused on strengthening traditional and alternative access to care and information, developing a team model of care, and developing team-based accountability for improving patient experience, quality, and cost of care.

This section focuses on the importance of establishing a trusted and continuous relationship between the patient and care team, and providing the care and health team the access families need, when they need it, and perhaps via alternate access options.

HealthTeamWorks has been on the frontlines of primary care transformation for more than 25 years. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit exists today to solve complex health care problems in the pursuit of health, equity, and resilience. This requires increasing successful Alternative Payment Model (APM) participation, fostering resilience in primary care, and bridging clinical, public health, and communities.

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on 26 Jan 2024 10:32 AM

Patient Cycle Time

Patient cycle time observation is a tool to measure the time it takes a patient to move through each part of the visit. Understanding the patient care processes and procedures in your practice, and the impact on the patient flow, will help you to improve the quality of care.

Supply and demand refers to the number of appointments, time, and resources available to provide patients with timely care compared to the patient need for care. The aim is to have supply and demand in equilibrium for patient access. Supply and demand can vary by day, week, month, or season; understanding these variations is crucial for managing timely access for patients (Measure and Understand Supply and Demand, n.d.). 

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Same day or open access allows patients to see their provider the day they call for an appointment. To accommodate these calls, scheduling leaves a specific number of appointments available each day to accommodate same-day needs based on previously documented demand.

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Just like any other industry, the healthcare industry has “busy seasons” as well as vacations, sick days, and staff turnover. A contingency plan is a blueprint for responding to events that may occur in the future.

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Empanelment is the process of managing provider patient panels for changes and updates. This process begins with the attribution or assignment of the practice’s active patients to the eligible providers in the practice.

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Empanelment is the process of attributing or assigning each active patient in the practice to a specific primary care provider (PCP) and his or her care team.

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