Feature
7-Day Attendance Forecasts: Which Channels Should You Use? We'll Show You.
When a patient receives a prescription, neither they nor the referring doctor know when their visit will be quickest at the site they need to go to.
The result: patients naturally cluster around the same time slots, saturating reception at certain hours while others stay under-used, with no information available to anticipate it.
The observation: attendance is never anticipated, only endured
Patients choose their time slot out of habit, often in the morning, often early in the week, without knowing that another time would be much smoother. No information lets them plan ahead before their visit.
KEY TAKEAWAY
It isn't the length of the wait that's the problem for patients, but the uncertainty: an informed patient copes with waiting far better than one who doesn't know what to expect.
The solution: 7-day attendance forecasts, built into your existing channels
Waitora provides each site with attendance forecasts for the next 7 days. This data can be built into the communication channels the laboratory already uses with patients: a booking app, an SMS or email sent after testing to explain how to get results, the Waitora patient portal, the laboratory's website, or any other relevant channel.
By checking these forecasts, patients can choose a quieter day or time to show up. The mechanism is comparable to what's seen in public transport: when real-time ridership information is provided, a significant share of users (30 to 70% according to a study on bus regulation in Warsaw) spontaneously choose to shift their trip rather than board an overcrowded vehicle, without changing their route. Applied to a medical laboratory network, this smoothing effect typically translates into a reception capacity gain of around 15 to 20%, with no change in resources.
IN PRACTICE
The results SMS or email sent after a first visit is a good entry point for building the habit: patients find the link to forecasts for their next visit there. It's particularly useful for patients being monitored for a chronic condition, who come back regularly.
For multi-site organizations: an option to redirect to a quieter nearby site
When several sites of the same organization are geographically close, attendance forecasts can also be used to direct patients toward the least busy facility at the time of their choice. This option is especially useful in dense urban areas.
SOURCE
Two studies conducted in Canadian hospital emergency departments show that displaying wait times doesn't push patients to forgo care: they redirect to the least busy site or shift their visit, and 76.7% of them report improved satisfaction from having this information.
What it changes in practice
"Patients no longer discover the line once they're there: they choose their moment before they leave home."
Want to know more?
See how Waitora's attendance forecasts can smooth your peaks and better distribute your patients.
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