PRP042: Can you provide an improved experience for patients by creating a more interactive exam room?

Jessica Parascando; Sean Oser, MD, MPH; Mary Ellen Wilson, MD; Tamara Oser, MD; Anne Darby, DO

Abstract

Context: Family Medicine is working towards incorporating technology to improve interactions with patients, including improving workflow, patient experience, and office set up. Wait time for patients is estimated at ~20 minutes, and while efforts continue to further reduce wait time, there remains a significant window of opportunity for using this time to improve patient experience. There is opportunity to utilize that time to the patient’s benefit, allowing the provider to enter the exam room and be able to answer focused and educated patient questions about the tests they are interested in, rather than spending time running through a check-list of what screening tests and interventions may be needed. Objective: To assess patient thoughts and opinions on current exam rooms in order to determine if an intervention with interactive posters featuring QR codes linked to educational videos will improve patient experience. Study Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: Family and Community Medicine (FCM) clinic at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. Population studied: Adult patients from the FCM Camp Hill clinic. Intervention: Patients arriving for care will be taken to a regular exam room with no alteration. Instrument: A paper survey will be given to measure patient experience in the exam room, and quality and experience of the posters, featuring Likert-scale and open-ended questions. Demographics and questions related to use of QR codes, internet use, exam room behavior and wait time will also be collected. Results: We anticipate that patients will self-report that they had a less than “acceptable” experience with the current posters in the exam room, and that the current posters did not improve their overall patient experience. We also expect that in the second phase of the study, the interactive posters will be associated with improved patient experience, be of higher quality and experience than traditional posters, and that participants will spend more time reading and interacting with the interactive poster, compared to the traditional poster. Outcome measures to be reported: Experience and quality of posters in the exam rooms as measured via likert scale questions. Overall experience in the exam room as measured through open and closed ended questions.
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Tim Riley
11/21/2020

Nice work! Clearly lays out an opportunity for improvement in the patient experience. I would be curious regarding patient attitudes toward and familiarity with QR codes - could be a confounder in the next phase if patients don't recognize or use them. Job well done!

Susan Veldheer
sveldheer@psu.edu 11/22/2020

What a great idea to assess this. Since patients are already getting their information from the sources you identified, perhaps the posters could guide them to reputable sources of information in these venues. It strikes me that the posters could also be a potential intervention if there were brief videos attached. Hmmm....

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