Shortening Urgent Care Wait Times For Patients
The Link Between Wait Time and Patient Satisfaction
Research shows that every aspect of the patient experience can be negatively impacted by long wait times, including how patients rate care providers and the perceived quality of care. This can be a frustrating reality for providers—you may provide excellent care that's overshadowed by what happened in the waiting room.
This research is disheartening, but it also highlights an opportunity for providers, since shortening wait times is a simple way to improve patient satisfaction.
Satisfied Patients Have Better Clinical Outcomes
Patient satisfaction is important for providers for more reasons than just patient retention and practice growth. That's because patient satisfaction is also linked to better clinical outcomes. Longer urgent care wait times can impact the patient’s perception of information and instructions given by the provider. For example, a patient feeling tired and frustrated after a long time in the waiting room may have difficulty understanding and remembering important information during their interaction with a provider. After treatment, this dissatisfied patient may struggle to adhere to the after-visit instructions, like returning to the clinic for stitches removal.
microMend Can Help Reduce Patient Wait Time
Reducing wait times at urgent care is a complex problem with various solutions. One option is to adopt new technology that can increase efficiency while maintaining clinical outcomes. microMend is an exciting new technology that reduces patient wait time while also providing the highest level of care. microMend is a wound closure device that shaped like a butterfly bandage and applied easily. The bandage has stainless steel microstaples that provide the same holding strength as sutures for lacerations up to 50 cm in length. Lacerations that require medical attention commonly bring patients into an urgent care. Providers using microMend instead of traditional urgent care wound care methods easily shorten patient wait times through faster visits, freeing up providers, and reducing follow-up visits.
Fast Application
Traditional sutures require multiple tools and supplies. They also require an injection of anesthesia to numb the laceration site and prevent pain before the procedure can even begin. Applying microMend is much faster and easier than traditional wound closure methods. microMend is painless to apply, eliminating the need for local anesthetic. Providers simply clean and dry the wound before placing microMend on it as quickly and easily as a bandage. Clinical trials show that applying microMend is seven times faster than a typical suture procedure.
Because microMend is painless on application, it can also save significant time treating lacerations on sensitive patients, like children or the elderly.
Applied by Ancillary Staff
A physician or another advanced practitioner must apply stitches and staples. This traditional approach to urgent care wound care can increase patient wait time because it requires a physician. The process of applying microMend is quick and simple and does not have to be completed by a physician. Using microMend will free up the physicians at your urgent care to see other patients, decreasing wait times. You can get the training process for applying microMend started for your ancillary staff with a short training video on the microMend website.
No Follow-Up Visit Required
After receiving traditional stitches, most patients must return to the facility for stitches removal. This added appointment for stitches removal has an impact on wait time for other patients. microMend eliminates the need for patients to return to the doctor after having a laceration treated since it can be painlessly and safely removed at home by the patient. Patients save time by removing microMend at home, allowing urgent care facilities to focus on providing prompt care to other patients.
Shortening patient wait times at urgent care can have a direct impact on overall patient satisfaction. microMend is a tool that can help you in your efforts to reduce patient wait time while providing the best possible care. Request a quote online, or learn more about the ways that microMend can benefit your urgent care facility on our website.
