Meeting Access to Care Through Innovation
Abstract
The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) provides services to eligible beneficiaries using multiple tools to meet the patients need to access care promptly. Patients have indicated a preference for virtual encounters to access health care services. As many as 20% of all primarycare encounters were accomplished virtually in the fiscal year 2016 (Military Health System [MHS], 2017). Patients perceive increased access to clinic staff when it is most convenient for them, choosing sooner care through a virtual appointment over later care (Roberts, Fletcher, Lutz, and Hubbard, 2018). Building virtual appointments (VA) into clinic templates and allowing providers to manage demand during this protected time supports both the needs of providers as well as patients while taking full advantage of alternate forms of communication (Goldzweig, Towfigh, Paige, Orshansky, Haggstrom, Beroes, Miake-Lye, and Shekelle, 2012; Pearl, 2014). It has been reported that the use of alternative clinical encounters increases both patient and provider satisfaction. However, this option has not been fully explored. Providers have voiced frustrations with alternate encounters because they view them as an added expectation to an already overburdened system. In this Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) Project, project directors will observe the current virtual appointment template process that addresses alternative encounters at Naval Hospital Bremerton (NHB) and will measure provider satisfaction with the current virtual appointment process and expectations. The goals of this project are to identify opportunities to improve the template appointing process and to measure the effect of provider satisfaction before and after implementation of a standardized appointing procedure. Improving provider satisfaction is the first step toward fully implementing VA and one of the essential steps toward realizing the changes necessary to increase access to care.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 10, 2018
- Accession Number
- AD1128280
Entities
People
- Jean A. Fortunato
- Schadaq Torres
Organizations
- Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences