All in Good Time (Management): Reprioritizing Exam Room Goals

There’s a prevailing opinion among providers that time is equal to care; the more time a provider gives a patient, the greater the level of care or genuine compassion he or she has. That’s just not true. The quality of care we provide to our panel is what determines success—not the amount of time we spend in the exam room.

Starbucks hasn’t come to the exam room

Our inappropriate focus on socializing with patients has led many of us to prioritize the unnecessary goal of what I call a “Starbucks moment.” We’re under the impression that patients want and deserve unlimited time to relax, catch up and discuss anything that’s on their mind during a visit, regardless of how long it takes. And perhaps some of us have come to believe we deserve a “break” too—a respite from the demands of our busy schedule, spent in the company of a patient with whom we have a genuine, enjoyable connection.

We must remove this idea of socializing from the context of appropriate medical care. The strength of a provider/patient relationship isn’t dependent on the amount of time spent with patients, it’s founded upon and maintained by the right balance between personal connection, timely access, and competent medical care. Personal involvement is critical for a provider to know the patient and make the right decisions for his or her care. But unlimited time not only fails to produce better health outcomes; it negatively impacts access for the rest of the panel.

Trust is the intangible component that makes the provider/patient relationship unique and health producing, not the amount of time spent together in the exam room. Patients generally consider provider competency a given because of the amount of education and training every provider receives, but timely access and communication are the key to building trust. No matter how good the provider, if she/he is not available to the patient, the patient loses trust. What patients want and need, besides competency, is timely access to a provider in whom trust has been developed – a familiar provider.

(A small caveat here. There will be instances when unlimited time is the right solution for patients with special circumstances or emergency concerns. But those exceptions shouldn’t drive day-to-day operations.)

Priority management

As I’ve written previously, time management begins with priority management. And if we’re going to fix primary care, we must begin by rethinking our priorities. So what are the exam room priorities for providers?

• Maintain personal involvement with each patient to create or sustain health
• Create access for the panel (in other words, see all the patients in the panel who need to be seen on a particular day) [links to TCM schedule content offer]
• Make the necessary medical decisions for patients when they need care rather than refer to another provider
• Empower clinical staff to accomplish all the ancillary (or non-provider) work inside the exam room
• Communicate with patients in a timely manner (accomplished with participation of the clinical staff)

None of the goals above challenge or threaten the personal connection between providers and patients, and they actually incentivize greater trust by giving patients the care they need when they need it. And all of these priorities address the concerns of the individual patient as well as the rest of the panel, leading to better population health and meaningful provider/patient relationships.

Keeping the main thing the main thing

Primary care providers must begin thinking in terms of time and work within appropriate boundaries to give patients the access and quality of care they need to become and remain healthy. This means reorienting priorities inside the exam room and elevating health-producing strategies over “feel-good” moments that don’t actually create health.

The value of this cultural change in the exam room has enormous potential to transform our primary care delivery. Reprioritizing the goals of the exam room will lead to the improved access, health outcomes and cost-effectiveness our patients, panels, systems and society so desperately need.