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Improving veterans' access to gastroenterology clinical care
1Thomas H. Hansen practices gastroenterology at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital in Hines, Ill. The author has disclosed no potential conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.
JAAPA : Official Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants
|February 23, 2018
Abstract:
At a VA hospital, wait times for gastroenterology care have been in the order of 60 to 90 days for new clinic consults. Through a quality improvement process, these times were reduced to less than 30 days. With a revised triage process, the number of consults needing to be scheduled into the clinic was reduced 34%. In addition to achieving rapid clinical access, the weekly half-day clinic became less congested and more efficient. We describe this process of achieving improved access.