Sometimes, waiting to see the doctor is inevitable, but patient wait times are one of the most frequent complaints. Patient wait time gives insight into how long a patient is waiting from the time they arrive to the time their consultation begins.
This metric represents the average time your patients had to wait before seeing a Practitioner. It's calculated as the difference between when the patient was arrived in the appointment book and when the consultation began. Time the patient spent waiting before the appointment was scheduled to start is not counted.
To navigate to this metric, go to Clinic insights > Past clinic metrics > Diaries tab > Patient wait time
NOTE! Cubiko is now able to identify instances of incomplete patient wait time data. When a Practitioner does not mark the patient consultation as started, the PMS will default the patient's wait time to '0' or 'null'.
Upon review, Cubiko is improving wait time metric calculations to now exclude these incomplete wait times which may be impacting practice wait time metrics. Cubiko will also provide a new way to see what the incomplete wait times are, which will provide visibility for patient appointments that don't have a complete wait time recorded.
Please see the section below 'Excluded data - no start time' for more information.
TOP TIP! Patients value their time spent with their Practitioner but aren't fans of waiting in reception for long periods of time. Reducing patient wait times can improve overall patient satisfaction.
The sections included in this article relating to Patient wait time are:
- Patient wait time by Practitioner
- Patient wait time
- Average of patient wait time
- Excluded data - no start time
Patient wait time by Practitioner
This chart represents the average time your patients had to wait in reception before seeing each Practitioner. It's calculated as the difference between when the patient arrived and when the consultation began.
Time the patient spent waiting before the appointment was scheduled to start is not counted.
TOP TIP! Use the Select role filter to see the wait time for different roles in your practice, such as your doctors, nurses, allied health or specialists separately.
Patient wait time
This figure represents the average time your patients had to wait in reception before seeing a Practitioner. It's calculated as the difference between when the patient arrived and when the consultation began.
Time the patient spent waiting before the appointment was scheduled to start is not counted.
TOP TIP! Use the filters to show individual Practitioners the average time their patients are waiting before seeing them.
Maybe the Practitioner doesn't realise their patients have been waiting a long time, or maybe they don't realise the practice team has kept the patients updated on how the Practitioner is running (so their patient wait time appears short, but the appointment actually started a lot later than the scheduled start time).
Average of patient wait time
This chart tracks changes in the average time your patients had to wait in reception before seeing a Practitioner.
Patient wait time is calculated as the difference between when the patient arrived and when the consultation began. Time the patient spent waiting before the appointment was scheduled to start is not counted.
TOP TIP! Use your filters to track your average patient wait time across a larger date range; group by day, week or month and see how your practice and practitioners are doing.
You can also have a look at where the peaks in patient waiting times occurred. Did something happen on that day? Can you reflect on what happened and consider ideas to mitigate that in the future?
Excluded data - no start time
Cubiko is now able to identify instances of incomplete patient wait time data. When a Practitioner does not mark the patient consultation as started, the PMS will default the patient's wait time to '0' or 'null'.
Upon review, Cubiko is improving wait time metric calculations to now exclude these incomplete wait times which may be impacting practice wait time metrics. Cubiko will also provide a new way to see what the incomplete wait times are, which will provide visibility for patient appointments that don't have a complete wait time recorded.
Certain settings in both Best Practice and Medical Director may be affecting the recording of consultation start times. Please review the information below. It's crucial to ensure that practitioners mark the consultation as started to record the start time accurately.
1. Best Practice
In Best Practice, this can occur when a Practitioner opens a file without selecting "Start visit".
This may occur more if the setting under User preferences > Clinical is ticked "Don't start timer on opening record".
Don't start the timer on opening the record: The timer in the patient window is not started until the play button is then manually clicked:
If not clicked, a start time is not recorded and will not be shown in Cubiko metrics.
2. Medical Director
If the start time is not stored this is recorded as Null and will not be included in Cubiko metrics. This can occur due to the "Record consultation time" option in progress notes options not being selected. By ensuring this is selected the start time will be recorded via default when the Practitioner correctly starts the consultation.
Record consultation time:
Select this option to store the Start and End times and the Duration of the consultation in the database when the record is closed. The Start time and Duration are displayed in the Previous Visits section of the Progress notes display. With this option cleared only the End time is recorded in the database and the Start time and Duration are unable to be displayed in the Previous Visits section.
Note: If you do not wish to see the consultation timer and do not want the Start time and Duration recorded in the patient's progress notes, both 'Hide consultation timer' and 'Record consultation time' must be cleared.
Record Progress Notes Prompt:
Select this check box to display a prompt to save a record of the visit when closing the patient record, if no changes have been recorded.
Hide consultation timer:
Select this option to hide the Visit timer on the patient's Clinical window. The Start and End times and Duration are still recorded in the database.