Slashing Exam Room Wait Times with Smart Alerts

Introduction

Rocky Boy Health Center is a tribally operated clinic located on the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation in north-central Montana. The clinic delivers comprehensive care including primary care, dental, pharmacy, laboratory, radiology, behavioral health, public health nursing, physical therapy, optometry, chiropractic, and traditional healing support to the Chippewa Cree community. As a vital health resource in the region, Rocky Boy implemented Stat in 2022 to enhance coordination and improve the patient experience across departments.

Challenge: Decreasing Patient Alone Times

After implementing Stat and reviewing real-time cycle time data, Rocky Boy Health Center identified a key opportunity to improve the patient experience: 38% of patients were spending 15 or more consecutive minutes alone in exam rooms.

This extended alone time affected patient satisfaction and signaled potential inefficiencies in room turnover and team coordination. With a commitment to improvement, the Rocky Boy team set out to address the gap.

Solution: Smart Alerts and Staff Competition

To reduce patient wait times and enhance rooming efficiency, Rocky Boy implemented a Stat powered workflow combining automated smart notifications with a friendly team competition.

• Smart Alerts for 15-Minute Alone Time
  Stat was configured to automatically notify staff via centrally placed Flowstations and customized alerts whenever a patient had been in a room alone for 15 minutes. The alerts kept staff aware and accountable without disrupting workflows.
  
  
• Staff Competition to Drive Engagement
  Leadership gamified performance improvement by launching a team-based competition. The three competition goals targeted patient alone time:
  
  1. Be the first team to reduce patients' experience 15-minute alone times from 38% to 10%. 
  2. Be the team with the fastest average response time when the 15-minute icon appears.
  3. Be the team with the highest improvement rate.
     

Together, these initiatives created visibility for the staff, urgency, and healthy competition around improving patient experience.

Results

The Stat-powered strategy delivered measurable improvements in patient care and staff responsiveness:

• 21% Decrease in Patients Left Alone for 15+ Minutes
  The percentage dropped from 38% to 30% during the competition.
• Faster Staff Response Times
  Average response time improved from 7.58 minutes to 5.53 minutes, a 27% improvement.
• Breakout Performance by Provider TeamAnalysis by provider teams revealed large differentiation and valuable opportunities for coaching. 

One team reduced the number of patients with 15-minute alone times to just 12%! 

• Provider 1: 12%
• Provider 2: 22%
• Provider 3: 29%
• Provider 4: 45%
• Provider 5: 35%

Conclusion: Next Steps

Following the success of the internal competition, leadership developed a plan to better understand what factors contributed to the most efficient provider teams. Leaders are now focused on replicating those successes across the clinic by prioritizing shared learning, additional workflow support, and coaching where needed.

Shorten the Wait, Stat.