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New same-day appointment system set up at medical clinic

A new way has been launched to make same-day appointments at the Hay River Medical Clinic.

The new system, which began on April 3, involves a phone-in option for patients.

A new same-day appointment system began on April 3 at the Hay River Medical Clinic. Frances Aylward, centre, the director of client services with the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority, holds a poster announcing the change. She is accompanied by Caryn Hirst, left, a clinic assistant, and Michelle Scott, a casual nurse. Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

"In order to make sure that we have access for our community, we decided that we needed to make sure that our clients can call in to the medical clinic instead of having to walk in for our same-day appointments," said Frances Aylward, director of client services with the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority.

For the time being at least, people can also still come in person and take a ticket.

Before the phone-in option, patients had to take a ticket beginning at 7:30 a.m. when the front doors of the hospital open. They could then wait or come back when the appointments were handed out at 8:45 a.m.

Depending on the time of the appointment, that may have meant a second or third trip to the clinic in the Hay River Regional Health Centre.

Some people, especially those with mobility issues and/or without vehicles, objected to the old system. An online petition was even launched calling for changes.

The health authority set up a working group last spring to look at the issue. It involved health centre staff and members of the public.

Under the new system, appointments will still begin to be handed out at the clinic's reception desk to those with tickets beginning at 8:45 a.m.

At the same time, another employee will be scheduling appointments for those calling in.

Both employees will be filling open appointment times via computer.

"They each can see how many appointments we have. They can each book those appointments," said Aylward. "The person in the back will be taking the phone calls so the person in front of people can actually work with the people."

Changes had to be made to the phone system to accommodate the new appointment process. In essence, the technical changes will allow calls to the medical clinic to be forwarded to the employee taking appointments by telephone.

The new system will be evaluated in about three months – including through public surveys – to see how many calls there are versus how many people actually show up in person to get same-day appointments.

"We'll see and evaluate what's working," said Aylward. "Do we need to have the two at the same time, or if we can just sort of fade out one."

She expects there'll be more phone calls and fewer people standing in line.

Paul Power, the executive assistant with the health authority, said the new system is to accommodate a need among many members of the public who don't have vehicles and are taking cabs for appointments.

"People like that need to be able to call in, book their appointment and then just come here one time," he said. "That was the issue – people having to come here two or three times in the matter of a day to see the doctor once."

Power noted there is no standard process in Canada for setting same-day appointments at medical clinics.

In fact, he said that five or six different processes have been used over the past 10 years in Hay River.