Even before the challenges created by COVID-19, GP practices were
exploring a new era of fast, effective and intuitive appointment
systems.  For Leith Surgery in Leith, Edinburgh, this involved the
transition to Vision Appointments [2]; part of Vision’s solution for
shared care and GP practices. The move to Vision Appointments is
reducing pressure on the front desk and helping to manage the peaks in
demand at the beginning of the academic year created by the high
proportion of students on the practice list.

_Leith Surgery Practice Manager, Dawn Saltman and Office Manager,
Lorna Russell, outline the benefits of Vision Appointments._

EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE APPOINTMENTS

Leith Surgery has been using the new Vision Appointments system for
over a year. The surgery has 20 administrative staff, seven GPs, two
nurses and a healthcare assistant. The practice is also approved for
training doctors who have chosen a career in general practice, with
three GP registrars.

Vision Appointments enables staff to handle appointment requests with
ease whether face-to-face, on the phone or online. With the ability to
personalise fast and flexible searches to find patients, clinician,
clinics and appointments it is easy to book, amend and cancel
appointments quickly, reducing the pressure on reception staff.

Lorna Russell describes the difference in booking appointments in the
new system to the old as “Night and day”, with the speed enabled by
the ease of search. Vision Appointments allows staff to identify
available appointments in an instant – swiping or scrolling between
weeks, if needed. With individual and practice wide filters and
preferences available, the search process is tailored to meet the
typical demands on reception staff.

The system is also easy to use, with new staff finding it very quick
to learn – a boon for the practice which employed two new
receptionists during the COVID-19 lockdown.  “From one screen they
have appointments, registrations and consultations has meant they have
picked up this way of working a lot quicker than if we had had to
explain each process separately,” says Dawn Saltman. “We have also
received training tutorials from Vision which have been excellent.”

TAILORED SEARCH

Leith Surgery took time to create the right searches before going
live, setting up searches for individual doctors, other clinicians,
routine and emergency appointments. Now, for example, if a patient
requests an appointment with a specific GP, the receptionist simply
clicks on that GP’s name and all his or her available appointments
come up. There is no extraneous information; the screen is clearer and
much easier to see. The same process can be used for routine or
emergency appointments with a doctor, or appointments with a practice
nurse.

Lorna Russell says, “We worked out what we were asked for at the front
desk and created the corresponding search in Vision Appointments. The
process of finding the next available appointment is a lot easier for
everybody.” Dawn Saltman adds, “The whole layout, the screens,
everything is much easier to see than the previous version.”

Leith Surgery is also utilising the colour coding within Vision
Appointments to make it even easier for staff to identify the correct
information. For example, as a training practice, Leith Surgery offers
consultations with a student – these are highlighted in colour
enabling the receptionist to double check the patient is happy with
that individual.

RAPID PATIENT ACCESS

Patient search is also much faster, with Vision Appointments offering
a number of ways to locate a patient, including date of birth, the
first few letters of their last name and first name, or a combination
of last name and date of birth. The system pops up each date of birth,
age, gender and NHS/CHI number to make it easy to select the right
patient.

Dawn Saltman says, “Once you have the appointments screen up you can
just start typing a date of birth and it brings up the patient. When
you go into that patient you can see all their information. You can
then use the searches to find the right slot and put in the reason for
the appointment.”

In addition, Vision Appointments shows the patient’s next appointment
and if or when they have cancelled; while appointments booked online
are recorded in italics, making it easy to track activity. The
practice is also using the monthly Vision DNA report to reduce missed
appointments. “It is a very good tool for us to manage the DNA
problem,” Lorna Russell confirms.

COVID-19 RESPONSE

The surgery has also been able to rapidly adapt the system to cope
with the demands of COVID-19. With online appointments suspended to
avoid any COVID positive patients making an appointment, patient
requests are now made by telephone, prior to being triaged by a GP via
telephone. If necessary, the GP will then make an appointment – via
video or face to face – on the system.

Lorna Russell explains, “We have created a COVID search in the system.
We have day to day appointments for GPs, day to day appointments for
nurses and our HCA and then we have messages for the Doctors, all run
through Vision Appointments.  All the information is there in the
system, paperless, which has made it a lot easier and more efficient.”

With all primary care services facing a time of transition, a
flexible, adaptable appointments solution that ensures everyone in the
practice is working from the same information, with a consistent
layout is key. Dawn Saltman concludes, “With Vision Appointments we
are all working as a team and we can quickly understand and respond to
changing patient demand.”