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e-Booking Spotlight: Magenta Health, Toronto, ON
Tip: It is important to work through all the main scheduling scenarios in advance of deploying online booking. It is also important to work with an online scheduling vendor that has experience in your area of care.
Magenta Health is a family medicine clinic in Toronto, Ontario that aims to use technology to provide accessible, timely, and convenient patient care. With a focus on allowing patients to book appointments anytime and anywhere, Magenta Health decided to implement an e-booking solution.
Since making this service available, Magenta has noted a lower no-show rate and a reduction in operational costs. It is easier to fill last minute cancellations and administrative staff found they have more time to spend on patient-focused tasks.
Initially, staff members at Magenta Health were particularly worried about whether online scheduling would result in patients abusing the improved access to their doctor, as well as the impact of publishing a physician’s schedule so openly. However, these issues have not remained concerns. The patients are respectful and considerate, and express their appreciation with the convenience.
The Magenta team has experienced a positive and successful e-booking implementation, and recently opened a second clinic using the same technology.
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Your Questions Answered
What is the best way to get patients to adopt my e-booking solution?
There are multiple approaches you can use to get your patients to adopt e-booking. A key tactic noted in a study of e-scheduling in primary care practices showed that ‘word of mouth’ referral from clinic staff and physicians were the greatest drivers of patient adoption. Other noteworthy findings are listed below:
- Create flyers, posters, pamphlets to advertise in the office or use as take away material for patients
- Record a clinic voicemail message for patients
- Update the practice’s website with booking information and a link to the booking tool
- Include e-booking reminders and tips on how to login or retrieve a lost password in other clinic mailings (e.g., notice of immunization clinics, health promotion messages etc.)
As always, it is important to do what you feel is right for both your patients and your practice.
The full study, Adoption, Use and Effects of an e-appointment System: Results of a Quebec Showcase Project, can be viewed here. |
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The Doctors Office, Vancouver, BC
Bayview Medical Clinic, Nanaimo, BC
