Five ways to empty a waiting room without seeing fewer patients
For any clinic with a busy evening session. , 6 minute read.
A full waiting room is not a sign of a popular doctor. It is a sign that patients do not know when to come. Most of the people on the bench could be at home or at work if they knew roughly when they would be seen.
1. Give every patient a number, including walk-ins
A queue that is “whoever is standing nearest the door” makes patients arrive early to defend their place. A token number, given at booking or on arrival, means their place is safe and they can sit down or step out. Walk-ins and booked patients must share the same numbering, or the walk-ins feel cheated and the arguments start.
2. Tell patients an honest approximate time
If the session starts at 5:00 pm and patients are seen about every eight minutes, token 15 will not be seen before about 6:50. Telling them so is the single biggest change you can make. Patients would rather hear “around 6:45” than sit for an hour and a half.
Be honest about when the doctor actually starts. If they usually arrive twenty minutes after the advertised time, work from that.
3. Text them when their turn is near
An approximate time drifts as the evening goes on. A short SMS when a few patients are ahead (“3 patients ahead of you, please start coming”) lets people wait at home and arrive at the right time. SMS reaches every phone, not only smartphones, which matters for older patients.
4. Separate the doctor’s queue from the medicine queue
In a dispensary, patients who have seen the doctor often wait again for their medicines, on the same bench as patients who have not been seen yet. Send the prescription to the counter as the patient leaves the room, so the medicines are being prepared before they reach it.
5. Show the queue on a screen
A display showing the token being seen and the next few numbers answers the question patients would otherwise ask the receptionist every few minutes. It also makes the queue visibly fair: people can see that numbers are called in order.
Any TV with a browser can do it. Our guide on setting up a queue display covers where to put it and how to keep names private.
Where to start
If you can only do one thing this month, start giving numbers and approximate times. The SMS alerts and the screen build on that. MyClinic does all five in one system, and you can try it free for 14 days.