The 5-Minute Clinic Audit: 10 Questions to Find Where Your Hospital Loses Time

You do not need a consultant to find out where your hospital or clinic loses time. You need ten honest answers. This checklist takes about five minutes. Grab a pen, or just think through each question.

How to use it

Read each question and answer it for a normal weekday. Note every one where the honest answer is "it depends", "I am not sure" or "it takes a while". Those are your leaks.

The ten questions

1. How many systems does your front desk open to answer "when was this patient last seen?" If the answer is more than one, every returning patient costs you a search.

2. Can a doctor see a patient's full history before the patient sits down? Or does the history arrive in pieces, after the consultation has started?

3. Do you know how many follow-ups are due this week? Not roughly. Exactly.

4. Who sends appointment reminders, and how? If it is someone's task to remember, it will eventually be forgotten.

5. When an appointment is rescheduled, in how many places does it need to be updated? Each extra place is a chance for the schedule to drift apart.

6. When a patient returns after six months, how long does it take to find their last visit? This is the question that shows how your records really work.

7. Can an administrator see, at a glance, who is booked today and which doctors are in? The morning picture should not need a round of phone calls.

8. What happens to a follow-up noted by a staff member who is on leave? If it lives in one person's notebook, it lives only as long as that person is at work.

9. How do records move between doctors or departments? Handwritten, scanned, re-typed? Every handoff is a place for details to get lost.

10. How much of the end of your day goes on re-entering what is already on paper? That time is not spent on patients.

Reading your results

Count the questions where the answer was "it depends" or worse.

• 0 to 2: Your day is in good shape. Keep watching the ones you flagged.
• 3 to 6: You have leaks. Pick the two that cost the most time and start there.
• 7 to 10: The problem is probably the setup, not the people. Your team is spending effort connecting systems that should already be connected.

Where OneHealth Digital fits

OneHealth Digital is built for exactly these questions. It keeps patient records, appointments, reminders and follow-ups in one secure place, and gives administrators a clear view of the day, so your team spends less time looking things up and more time with patients.

To see how it would work for your hospital or clinic, visit onehealthdigital.com.