The Brief

When observing the administration teams I noted that approximately 80-90% of incoming patient phonecalls were asking 2 questions “have you recieved my referral?” & “Am I on the waiting list/how long is the waiting list?”

The Approach

The first thing to recognise is that these questions are motivated by worries/fears (‘I’ve been lost in the system’, ‘I’ll have to wait for years’, etc) and that fear is amplified by silence and uncertainty. It was clear that a new communication needed to be embedded into the existing journey to resolve these fears without the need for patients to call in.

Mapping the patient journey allowed me to recognise the missed opportunity. Automation was already being used in 2 places (to move referrals onto waiting lists, to send SMS appointment reminders) but the two processes had never been combined.

Within a few hours the automation lead had adapted the existing triggers to send patients the new simple tailored SMS alongside moving their referral to the correct waiting list post-triage. This zero cost change reduced these queries by 80-90%, saving an estimated 10 hours of administrative workload per team per week.