We compiled what we think are some of the best tips for fellow healthcare providers for ways to manage your practice during this global pandemic. If you have other suggestions, please share them!
See symptomatic and asymptomatic patients on different days, or in different time slots (e.g. morning vs. afternoon appointments). And it makes more sense to see them at the end of the day, as the most intense cleaning processes are after end of day. One innovative clinic parked a camper in their parking lot and healthcare providers only sees symptomatic patients there, not allowing them in the clinic. It helps keep everyone safer.
- Offer webinars on hot topics, including children’s behavioural health and new mom education.
- Engage patients in their health care by asking them to submit pre-visit information. Set up a secure way to receive documents. And provide pre-visit appointment instructions. You can find more information on securely document sharing here.
- Review appointments with patients that were cancelled in the Spring. Reach out to them to make sure they know that you are open and any new procedures (e.g. flu shots in the parking lot) that your office has implemented.
- Designate one phone for two-way texting (one that belongs to the practice, not an individual). Have client’s text when they arrive before coming to the waiting room. Staff can go to the parking lot to check temperatures and/or do a pre-screen before bringing them into the office. Avoid passing around clipboards, unless providing gloves or offering hand sanitizer after use.
- Provide patients with copies of their recent lab results, x-rays. If your office needs to close, they have at least some recent information to provide to another healthcare provider.
- For telehealth visits, resend instructions and the link five to ten minutes prior to the appointment starting. We all know about losing important emails.
- If you email with patients, have an automatic reply that includes commonly asked questions and your office protocols.
- Consider teams. Work different hours so that if one person on a team tests COVID positive, the second team has not been in contact with them.
- No web site? Consider “Google My Business” and post important information for patients and suppliers.
- Outsource as many tasks as possible, to reduce staff in the office. Consider an outside transcription service, or an outside laundry service.
- Finally, practise self-care. Stay safe and stay healthy.
2Ascribe Inc. is a medical transcription services agency located in Toronto, Ontario Canada, providing medical transcription services to physicians, clinics and other healthcare providers across Canada. Our medical transcriptionists take pride in the quality of your transcribed documents. WEBscribe is our client interface portal for document management. 2Ascribe continues to implement and develop technology to assist and improve the transcription process for physicians and other healthcare providers, and recently introduced AUTOfax. AUTOfax works within WEBscribe to automatically send faxes to referring physicians when a document is signed off by the healthcare professional. As a service to our clients and the healthcare industry, 2Ascribe offers articles of interest to physicians and other healthcare professionals, medical transcriptionists and office staff, as well as of general interest. Additional articles may be found at our website.
