To provide the ideal patient care setting, doctors should be aware that some conditions may be painful and require immediate attention and treatment. Doctors should be striving to reach the pinnacle of excellence in patient care.
Physicians should improve their accessibility in order to provide the same day service, and see walk in patients. The phone services must answer the patient's call in three rings or less 90% of the time.
The service is provided by a world-class talented team who are capable of treating all conditions from neck to toe. Physicians should also see difficult and complicated cases, second opinions and previously failed procedures. The offices have to provide hope to the patients when there seems to be no hope.
It is the commitment of the office to complete the entire consultation, for a routine appointment, within one hour from the start time of that appointment. During the patient's visit, they will be provided with same day consultations from other departments, if it is deemed necessary.
Free valet parking provides an amazing convenience to the patients. It should be an all-inclusive service, so patients do not have to be shuffled to different offices. The physicians should also provide expanded service to include Saturday appointments for those patients who cannot make a weekday appointment.
Clearly it isn't easy to reach this advanced level of health care delivery process. It is a hard, long road with a lot of challenges, failures and successes. We must learn from our mistakes and make our system better. Physicians give the community a commitment that phones will be answered within three rings, that the patients may walk in, the entire routine visit will take one hour or less, the patient will be seen on Saturday (if desired), and that they may receive consultations with other services within the same day.
It is an achievable dream. Offices and clinics should strive to be more than just the doctor's office. It should be an institution with unmatched talent and resources that are directed towards one goal, which is to help the patient and make it easier for them to receive the appropriate care.
The University of Toledo Orthopaedic Center and its Chairman, Nabil Ebraheim has made efforts to implement such a system. We believe it is possible to deliver top-notch service to all patients with the same goal in mind.