Title of Effective Practice: - California Postsecondary Education ...

Direct Connection to Policy Area 6 of The Illinois Commitment
Open Access Clinics Project
Southern Illinois University - School of Medicine
What issue or need is addressed by the effective practice?
The clinical office practice, or ambulatory care setting, lies at the heart of health care. Yet time required to
schedule available outpatient appointments can be long. Providing high-quality care requires patient clinic
systems and procedures that schedule patients as soon and as easily as possible.
Description of the effective practice:
The Open Access Clinics Project seeks to improve patient scheduling within the SIU Physicians & Surgeons
clinics (SIU’s physician practice organization clinics) and thus enhance access to SIU’s physicians and foster
greater patient satisfaction. In essence, this approach eliminates unnecessary waits for appointments by
predicting and managing patient demand and better matching physician availability or “supply” to demand. An
additional benefit of the Open Access Clinics model is improved continuity of care. The school’s departments
of Family and Community Medicine/Springfield and Internal Medicine have piloted programs to improve
patient scheduling using the Open Access Clinics model. Each has established physician teams, groups of
physicians who see the same panels of patients and agree to see each others’ patients as necessary. Patients
contacting the clinics are scheduled with a team member physician, and should a particular physician
unexpectedly become unavailable, another on the team will see the patient. Patient schedulers work together to
coordinate series of physician visits when required for the patient’s care. Further, schedulers establish and
monitor a balance between same-day appointments and advanced-day appointments to maintain available open
times on the physician teams’ schedules and allow patients to visit when needed. Together with implementation
of the medical school’s call center and its use for patient scheduling, the Open Access Clinics model is making
more efficient use of clinic resources and improves patients’ experiences in visiting SIU’s physicians.
How does this practice achieve sustainability?
Patient scheduling systems and business processes have been reengineered, and staffing has been adjusted to
support the Open Access Clinics approach. SIU’s clinical practice and departments are committed to expanding
this approach throughout the medical practice. This project exemplifies the streamlining and improving of
administrative processes in support of service to the region’s citizens, objectives of Southern at 150: Building
Excellence Through Commitment.
What are the results/measurable outcomes?
This project was undertaken to improve patient satisfaction and scheduling times for patient visits. These
measures will be monitored, and additional refinement of the scheduling processes and clinic staffing will be
made as necessary.
Contact Information
Name: Kathryn Mahaffey
Email: kmahaffey@siumed.edu
Phone: (217) 545-1881
210