Improving the Patient Flow at an Academic Primary Care Teaching Clinic Serving African American Patients

Background and Objectives: Patients express their long wait time as an ineffective patient flow pattern and subsequently patient dissatisfaction. We embarked on this study to ensure an efficient clinic. We used findings from a pilot time-flow study at an academic family practice to identify operational problems that led to excessive patients’ wait time and repeated the study after the practice has been restructured with the goal to re-evaluate consequent changes in patient waiting times, clinical process efficiency, and patient satisfaction.