Why Workflow Tracking Is a Value-Add to Your Organization

How AI-powered tracking works and how it can be used to gain insights into staff and patient workflow.

Workflow tracking with AI is a value-add to healthcare organizations. Data about how staff and patient time are spent can help your office become more efficient, productive, and profitable.

Is your practice’s workflow as efficient as possible? 

With workflow tracking, you can monitor employee performance, patient visits, and more. Find out what’s working—and what isn’t—to make each day more productive and cost-effective.

The best part? Artificial intelligence makes tracking easy. Use AI to monitor automatically in real-time and gather helpful information that helps you grow your practice. 

How AI-powered tracking works

Tracking your practice’s workflow helps you break down exactly how time is being spent. 

While you have a schedule in place, without tracking, you might not know if specific steps take longer than they should. There might also be procedures that staff is missing, or extra processes taking place that you aren’t aware of. 

A tracking system with AI detects how long each part of the flow takes, down to the minute. It collects this data in real time and provides information in a format that makes it easy to interpret and initiate action.

Workflow tracking capabilities

With real-time AI workflow tracking, you can better understand where time is going for both staff and patients.

Staff and provider workflow insights

For staff, you’ll gain insight into what tasks each employee spends time on. You'll be able to see when the schedule isn't matching what happens day-to-day and drill down to learn more. 

Here’s an example. Maybe you’re wondering how long it takes patients to check in when they arrive at your office. With AI data, you know that checking in a returning patient for Provider A takes three minutes while checking in a returning patient for Provider B takes twice as long.

Why the disparity? Perhaps one of your providers requires more forms than another, and that means patients spend more time in the waiting room completing those forms before being ready to be seen. 

Now that you know, you can use this data to identify what’s causing the difference between providers and adjust either your process or patient arrival times accordingly.  

Patient flow insights

For patients, you can monitor the timing of each appointment cycle from arrival to checkout. 

Specifically, you'll track how much time patients spend:

• Checking in, whether as a new or returning patient 

• Sitting in the waiting room

• Completing intake steps

• Waiting for their provider in an exam room

• Seeing a provider

• Moving from room to room

• Seeing technicians or other specialists

• Paying and checking out

If just one of these steps is taking longer than necessary, the extra time adds up fast! Tracking will help you zoom in on when and where that's happening.   

5 ways tracking data works to your advantage

Here are five major ways you can benefit from the data AI tracking delivers:

1. Diagnose pain points and inefficiencies

Save time for everyone in the office by identifying where things aren't working as they should be. If there are parts of the workflow process that take too long, AI will help identify them. These issues can seem minor, but they often cause delays and bottlenecks down the line. 

According to the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2022 Advisory on healthcare worker burnout, “burdensome administrative tasks” are one factor that contributes to burnout. As you track your workflow tasks, you may find ways to reduce or eliminate some of this load. 

2. Identify top performers

Use workflow tracking to find your top performers and see what they do to stand out among other staff. You’ll see who has a good workflow process in place. Then, you can use this information to help other employees learn to work more efficiently. 

You can also spot opportunities for further training, motivational activities, or disciplinary action as needed. For the employee taking too long to check patients in, for example, a shadowing session with their coworker might be all it takes to improve.

3. Assign the right number of exam rooms to each provider

Workflow tracking will help you determine if you’re assigning the right number of exam rooms to each provider. Those with an efficient workflow process see more patients and use more exam rooms. On the other hand, giving too many rooms to less-efficient providers can result in wasted space. 

4. Ensure appointments are timely and efficient 

Data about patient visits can help you validate that each appointment is timely and efficient. You’ll be rewarded with happier, more satisfied patients—patients who can lead to more business via word of mouth and positive online reviews!

5. Give staff time back for other tasks 

Finally, by identifying and resolving workflow issues, you’ll free up time for staff to spend on the most vital tasks. When providers spend less time on administrative duties, they can focus on seeing more patients and providing quality care—a win for everyone.

Add value with AI and workflow tracking

You've seen that workflow tracking can benefit your staff, improve your patient experience, and increase your overall office organization, productivity, and profit margin.

A solution like DOCPACE makes it fast and easy to implement workflow tracking and add value to your organization. We handle the setup for you, so implementing AI isn’t another thing on your to-do list.

Learn more about how you can benefit at DOCPACE.com. And if you have any questions or want to share your thoughts, send us a DM anytime!