Empowering Patients with Cancer to Self-Schedule New Patient Consultations - [Mini Podcast] Ep 165

UCSF Health’s Seeking Care Patient Experience Team introduced web self-scheduling to improve fragmented workflows and streamline the process of seeking care from a cancer specialist. Patients now have the option to conveniently self-register and schedule appointments through 2 distinct models: direct scheduling of a new-patient appointment or use of a navigator-led intake appointment. This innovative self-scheduling approach improved the patient experience and contributed to cancer service line growth. Read more about this initiative in “The Evolution of Patient Empowerment: Self-Scheduling New Patient Consultations” in the Volume 39, Number 4 Oncology Issues.

“A lot of our stakeholders felt that patients would not be capable of accurately self-scheduling. [We found] that is not true. We were able to design simplified decision trees for patients to help them have high accuracy selecting the right practice and provider.” —Laurel Bray-Hanin, MA

“Almost 50% of the patients who used our online self-scheduling did so outside of traditional business hours…in evenings and weekends. That's the time when they're able to deal with their medical care. And I think that's pretty striking because typically our call centers and staff who might respond to messages are not available during those hours.”—Laurel Bray-Hanin, MA

Guest:

Laurel Bray-Hanin, MA

Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Cancer Services

UCSF Health

San Francisco, CA

Resources

• Improving the Care of Patients Newly Diagnosed With Breast Cancer—Oncology Issues
• Bedside Scheduling Improves Patient Access—Oncology Issues
• Patient-Centered Scheduling
• How Infusion Scheduling is Like a Game of Tetris—Oncology Issues
• Breast Care ACCESS Program—Oncology Issues