3.4. Waiting room health monitors and surgery pods

The time available during a clinical consultation must be divided between a number of tasks. Some can be delegated to members of the practice team other than GPs, for example collecting routine clinical information, conducting simple tests and updating patient records.

Many GP practices now share these tasks across practice nurses, healthcare assistants (HCAs) and administrative staff. This optimises GP time. This principle of delegation can be taken one logical step further – can patients be asked to complete some of these tasks for themselves?

Making a difference

Before investing in waiting room monitors, each practice should consider how it might integrate the system into their existing patient management processes.

In a sense it is no different from taking on an extra member of staff. It needs a room or space in which to operate, a private area with a desk where patients would feel comfortable taking clinical tests. The practice needs to work out which information, tests and data it will be set up to collect.

Both the practice clinical and administrative staff need to understand how using the ‘pod’ fits into the patient journey. Questions to consider include ‘what type of patient and when?’, followed by ‘how many times might this happen?’. The answers will help to assess the likely benefit and return compared to the effort and investment required. At the end of this section there is an account of a practice that has realised significant and tangible benefits from using the technology.

How to make it happen

This section describes a series of practical steps for practices and discusses what is   involved in each step:

• Agree the need.
• Assess practice compatibility.
• Obtain a quote.
• Make an investment decision.
• Design new processes.
• Install system.
• Embed new processes.
• Measure benefits.