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• Create Contingency Plans
  The natural variation in supply and demand that occurs as part of the everyday functioning of a practice often creates problems that contingency plans can address
• Decrease Demand for Appointments
  Reducing the amount of demand makes it easier for the system to absorb current or future levels of demand.
• Improve Workflow and Remove Waste
  Improving the flow of work and eliminating waste ensures that the clinical office runs as efficiently and effectively as possible.
• Manage Panel Size and Scope of the Practice
  Managing panel size and the scope of the practice allows a team to balance supply and demand and ensures that they can do today's work today.
• Measure and Understand Supply and Demand
  Understanding the patterns of both demand and supply on a weekly, monthly, or seasonal basis allows for focused efforts to shape demand to match supply, and/or increase (or decrease) supply during periods of high (or low) demand
• Optimize the Care Team
  Optimizing the care team is critical to maximizing the supply of the clinic and improving the daily flow of work.
• Predict and Anticipate Patient Needs
  To ensure that patient needs are met and that patients flow smoothly through the clinic process, staff look ahead on the schedule to identify patient needs for a given day or week.
• Recalibrate the System by Working Down the Backlog
  Backlog consists of appointments on the future schedule that have been put off due to lack of space on the schedule to do this work sooner; working down the backlog recalibrates the system to improve access.
• Reduce Scheduling Complexity
  Complex schedules, with many appointment types, times, and restrictions, can actually increase total delay in the system because each appointment type and time creates its own differential delay and queue. Reducing the complexity ultimately decreases system delays.