When UVA Health applies the Vizient benchmark for New Patient Access within 14 Calendar Days, UVA is below the 25 percentile. United on Access was designed to allow us to catch up with our goal to increase patient access.
The following information provides important context around clinical operations:
Within a five-day work week (Monday to Friday), there are ten potential four-hour clinic sessions – five in the morning (usually 8 a.m.-12 p.m.) and five in the afternoon (usually 1 p.m.-5 p.m.). The vast majority of academic health care organizations ask their physicians to be present for the full four hours of a clinic session.
We are not asking our physicians to participate in all ten clinic sessions each week. The number of clinic sessions a physician participates can vary depending upon many factors, acknowledging other obligations such as research, teaching, or administration, as well as whether a physician is part-time or full-time. For example, a physician that has many responsibilities outside of clinical care may only have one or two sessions per week. United on Access does not mandate how many sessions a physician will have each week; rather this is determined by the department chair and the physician’s other obligations.
What the United on Access team is asking is this — if you are assigned to a four-hour session, then you be in clinic for the full four hours of that session. This ensures that we maximize the use of both our clinical staff (front desk staff, nurses, MAs, etc.) and clinic space, both of which are at a premium. To have a fully staffed four-hour clinic without doctors present and seeing patients is a waste of resources and deprives patients of much-needed access to clinical care.
If you want to work less, the choice should be to work fewer sessions. This is a conversation between you and your department chair. However, when you do work a session, you need to be present for the full four hours of that session to maximally utilize our staff and space — and increase access to care for our patients.
For more information
- Please visit the One Team | United on Access Faculty FAQs.
- If you have any questions about One Team | United on Access, please reach out to John Bennett, Chief Ambulatory Operations Officer, your Ambulatory ACMO, a your department chair, or send an email to ROneTeamUnitedonAccess@uvahealth.org
Filed Under: Clinical