Scheduling Flashcards
In terms of Scheduling what is accessibility?
Accessibility, or access to care, is the ability to seek and receive care at an organization. It is a patient‐centered scheduling concept. It can be stated as: “How long do I have to wait to see my provider?”
In terms of Scheduling, what is availability?
Availability is provider‐centered scheduling concept. A provider may want to know how much of their time is open ‐ or available ‐ on any given day.
In terms of Scheduling, what is utilization?
Utilization is the opposite of availability. It represents how much of a provider’s time is used.
What is the problem with measuring availability by looking at how many days we need to look ahead to find an opening for a particular provider, department, or hospital?
If we only look for the first available opening, our numbers might be skewed by cancelations.
What is the industry standard to avoid having accessibility metrics skewed by cancelations?
To report on the third next available appointment (3NA)
What master file stores the accessibility configuration records?
SNR
What are the three steps that accessibility configurations calculate their numbers?
- Define the date on which to perform the search: This is determined by the scheduled batch job
- Find the date of the occurrence for each entity and level: While the occurrence is frequently the 3rd next available appointment, this can change based on SNR build
- Calculate the difference in days between the dates from parts 1 and 2: Depending on SNR build, this may only count business days
What is lead time?
Lead time represents the number of days between creation of an actual appointment and the appointment date.
What column is used to find the lead time for a given appointment?
VisitFact.AppointmentLeadTimeInDays
What table holds lead time goals across a facility?
LOC_SA_LEAD_TIME_GOALS
What table holds department level lead time goals?
DEPT_LEAD_TIME_GOALS
What master file stores appointment requests?
ORD
What is another name for appointment requests?
Schedule orders
What table lists any relevant appointments scheduled from the request?
APPT_REQ_APPT_LINKS
What four pieces of information are needed for every appointment?
- Patient. When we create an appointment, we are creating a contact on an EPT record.
- Provider/Department. When thinking about appointments, it’s best to think about the provider and department as a pair. The appointment is scheduled with the combination of a particular provider in a particular department ‐ you cannot schedule with just one or the other.
- Start Date/Time. The appointment date also defines the contact date.
- Appointment length. Appointments will have a length in some multiple of 5 minutes.
What are the core database objects in Caboodle and Clarity for reporting on scheduling?
- Caboodle: VisitFact
- Clarity: V_SCHED_APPT
What is the granularity for VisitFact?
Every row represents a visit
What is the granularity for V_SCHED_APPT?
Every row represents an appointment
What is an appointment?
It is any EPT contact that has defined an appointment status, provider, department, and visit type.
What is a visit?
Visits include those appointments and any other encounters that of a type that an organization specified. For example, telephone encounters, telemedicine visits, and in‐home visits are not classically considered appointments, but many organizations choose to consider them under the term of visit.
If there are multiple departments or providers associated with an appointment, then V_SCHED_APPT only stores the ID of the _____ department and provider in the list.
First department and provider in the list
What are appointments with multiple providers or resources are referred to as what?
Joint appointments
For an appointment to be considered joint, what must be true?
The times selected must be the same, overlap, or touch for all providers/resources involved.
What Clarity table has a row for each action a user takes to schedule an appointment?
PAT_ENC_ES_AUD_ACT
What questions can PAT_ENC_ES_AUD_ACT help answer?
- In which department is a user logged in when they schedule an appointment.
- What actions are users taking to schedule appointments.
What is stored in the table, SCHED_ORDERS_WQ?
This table contains information about appointment request workqueues (WQF records)
What is stored in the table, SCHED_ORDERS_WQ_ITEMS?
This table contains information about appointment request workqueue items (WQI records)
What is stored in the table, SCHED_ORDERS_HX?
This table contains user activity history for appointment request workqueue items
What columns from VisitFact will allow you to report on how patients conduct their own scheduling?
- ScheduledOnline ‐ a 1/0 column that indicates whether the visit was scheduled online
- PortalActiveAtScheduling ‐ a 1/0 column that indicates whether the patient’s MyChart patient portal account was active at the time of scheduling
- PortalReasonForVisit ‐ if the visit was scheduled
How does ticket scheduling work?
If a clinician makes an order for a future appointment and the patient needs to schedule the appointment, the patient can receive a ticket in MyChart. Tickets appear as messages in MyChart for the patient to resolve by scheduling an appointment.
How do you determine in Clarity how many tickets were presented to patients?
Filter APPT_REQUEST to only include rows where:
- REQUEST_METHOD_C = 7 ‐‐ Patient Portal
- RELEASED_TO_PAT_YN = ‘Y’
What is used to tie related contacts (such as cancelled/rescheduled appointments) together?
Appointment Serial Numbers (ASN)
What is Fast Pass?
Fast Pass is a wait list feature in Cadence that automatically sends patients text or email messages to notify them of a wait list appointment offering. Upon receiving the message, patients can then log in to MyChart and claim the offer if it is still available or decline the offer to keep the original appointment and wait for another offer.
What is a Slot?
A schedulable range of time in a provider’s schedule. Slots are specified by a begin time and an end time; the length must be an increment of 5 minutes.