A key part of running a successful practice is having
efficient, reliable and time-friendly systems in place to support medical
practitioners and nursing staff with activities related to patient follow-up
including test tracking, referral tracking and recalls.
As a practice
manager, setting up your practice support systems correctly at the outset will
enable you to track and follow up on patient outcomes. While you may not wish
to track all processes in your practice there are some general issues to
consider:
- The patient’s medical condition – is it serious or
life-threatening?
- The risks to the patient of either delaying or
not receiving the medical treatment.
- Are the test results
abnormal?
In establishing an effective test-tracking system –
you need to consider, in conjunction with clinical staff, which types of
tests/patients should be followed up and how. While the doctor cannot ‘force' a
patient to undertake a test or procedure, it is certainly important that as a
practice manager, you are informed by the treating practitioner of any patients
who have not had the tests the doctor requested so you can take any appropriate
action. Once you have been informed by the treating practitioner of the
test/patients to be tracked, set up a system that allows you to record the
outgoing test centrally, not just on the patient file. This can be done via a
computer-assisted system or paper-based system.