Empowered Patient Podcast Streamlining the Urgent Care Environment and Interaction with Patients with Dr. Ben Barlow Experity
Dr. Ben Barlow, Chief Medical Officer of Experity, has identified opportunities to leverage the power of technology in the complex urgent care environment, which requires a wide range of services. To overcome the challenges of long wait times and staffing shortages, Experity is streamlining workflows and making urgent care more efficient and patient-centered. Online scheduling, pre-visit information gathering, and access to existing electronic health records aid clinicians in treatment decisions and post-visit follow-up, resulting in improved delivery of on-demand healthcare services.
Ben explains, "We do a lot of different things. I don't think people know what we do in urgent care. We started being an alternative for patients to the emergency department, but now we've evolved into being patient-centered to where the doctor waits on the patient. And so, that's what we do in urgent care. We take care of a lot of different needs of the patients, really dictated on what the patients want us to help them with."
"I think that urgent care's strength is that we continue to think about the challenges the patients are experiencing and try to adapt to those challenges. An example is recently, when COVID hit, no one wanted to wait in lobbies. They didn't want to interact with other sick people. So urgent care ramped up its online scheduling, allowing patients to get on a waitlist online and then get texted when it was their time to come in. And so it's those kinds of things that, as challenges arise, the urgent care community is looking to address. Our major challenge right now is looking at the payer system, challenges with reimbursement, labor shortages, and things like that."
"We want to think of the patient as not just the interaction that occurs inside the clinic but also before and after because the medical community and the healthcare environment are very complicated to navigate. We feel like urgent care is the front door into the system, so we're continuing to make products and services that help our clients help patients navigate the complexities of the healthcare environment."
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