In an age where businesses and medical practices are in constant competition to utilize the latest technology, there’s one thing that your veterinarian office should utilize to stay competitive: a virtual waiting room. 

With a growing focus on patient convenience and digital options in the healthcare industry, virtual waiting rooms have seen an explosion in popularity in recent years. 

For veterinary practices specifically, virtual waiting rooms are tremendously useful for people with pets who would prefer not to sit in a waiting room with other owners and animals. 

Here are 5 ways that not implementing virtual waiting could be hindering your emergency vet practice’s operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

1: Inefficient Time Management

The traditional waiting process in vet practices involves people crowding into a waiting room with their pets, oftentimes creating a level of chaos and slowing down the patient intake process as a whole. This can easily lead to a ripple effect of sorts, resulting in scheduling errors, missed appointments and overbooked days.

Without a virtual waiting room, vets can expect extended waiting periods, causing unnecessary stress and annoyance for both the practice’s staff and clients. Virtual waiting rooms ease this headache by creating a level of calmness and efficiency in the waiting room.

2: Decreased Client Satisfaction

Not utilizing a virtual waiting room can lead to unnecessarily long and uncertain wait times, as clients crowd the waiting room and cannot be seen in a timely manner. This will inevitably result in frustration, negative reviews, and potentially lost business as a consequence of unhappy clients.

Virtual waiting rooms allow the waiting process to be streamlined by empowering your practice’s staff to control who can enter the office and when. This leads to more organization, efficiency, and less frustrated clients who may have sought out another veterinary practice as a result of inefficient waiting rooms.

People with pets who may be aggressive to other animals will also appreciate the added convenience of a virtual waiting room. They can wait with their pet in a more secluded location, such as in their car, and minimize the time their pet is around other animals. 

Learn how this animal emergency center improved the pet owner experience with mobile check-in and digital intake. 

3: Impact on Staff Workflow

Unpredictable waiting times which are caused by practices not adopting virtual waiting rooms can leave your staff feeling stressed and unorganized. This is because traditional waiting rooms often lead to more pressure on reception staff, less efficient work, and a negative workplace environment that doesn’t attract new employees.

When the patient intake and waiting process is streamlined with virtual waiting rooms, staff morale and productivity are boosted due to the lack of stress and chaos that comes with traditional waiting rooms in vet practices. 

4: Reduced Ability to Handle Emergencies

In any medical waiting room, let alone a veterinary practice, emergencies can pop up at any time and staff need to be able to react swiftly and calmly. Traditional waiting methods do not provide the level of flexibility that is necessary when handling unexpected emergencies. 

When an emergency arises, a clinic with a traditional waiting room may have difficulty finding the resources to respond to the emergency due to the natural chaos associated with these waiting rooms. Their ability to prioritize critical cases can also be hindered when the waiting room is packed with owners and their pets.

Having a system that can adapt to changing priorities and needs with the click of a few buttons can make all the difference when an emergency presents itself in the waiting room. Virtual waiting rooms are great tools for keeping other patients out of the waiting room so staff can dedicate all of their attention and resources to the emergency at hand. 

5: Limited Access to Modern Client Expectations

In the digital age, there has been a shift in client expectations where convenience and accessibility are more important now than ever. Using traditional waiting rooms and not adopting virtual waiting can make a practice appear outdated or less competitive, resulting in a potential loss of clients.

Keeping pace with modern technology by adopting a virtual waiting room enhances client relationships and loyalty by showing that your practice is willing to adopt the tools that make client experiences more convenient and less stressful. 

Get a Better Virtual Waiting Room for Your Animal Health Practice

When it comes to increasing operational efficiency and bettering the customer experience in your veterinary practice, adopting our virtual waiting room software is a great way to achieve this. With the limitations of a traditional waiting room and the expectation that medical practices are current with modern technology, having a virtual waiting room is key to remaining competitive in the healthcare industry.

See more about how our virtual waiting room software can improve your veterinary practice for staff and patients and request a demo with ER Express today.

Medical practices such as urgent cares and emergency departments can oftentimes be hectic environments for both staff and patients. But amidst the chaos, fostering meaningful patient engagement from the staff is crucial when it comes to providing a positive experience for patients. 

These interactions are important, as they not only provide ease in an oftentimes stressful experience for patients but also increase the chance that these patients will choose to return to your practice on their next visit.

With emerging technological trends changing the way that medical practices operate, it is important to learn how to use this technology to improve patient engagement within your practice and remain competitive.

Here are five of the most common roadblocks that impede patient engagement in urgent care and emergency departments and how your practice can overcome them. 

1: Lack of Convenient Access

Getting a hold of busy staff on the phone can make the appointment-booking process a challenge for many patients. Then upon arrival, their experience is often dampened by long waiting times that make them spend more time than they would like in the waiting room before they are able to be seen.

Implementing virtual check-in systems allows patients to book an appointment (save your spot) online with ease, reducing the need to sit on hold waiting for a staff member to pick up the phone. Digital queuing can also be used to efficiently manage the waiting lines in your practice so that patients aren’t held up by long crowds while they are waiting to be seen.

2: Inefficient Communication

Communication is key for urgent cares and emergency departments, as it helps ensure that patients and staff are on the same page throughout their medical journey. Delays in information sharing and lack of immediate and two-way communication with patients can cause unnecessary stress and annoyances for the practice, staff, and patients.

Online communication platforms are a great tool that allows staff in your practice to easily communicate with patients through a digital portal. You can also implement two-way messaging to enable real-time interactions and reduce any roadblocks in communication.

These tools are incredibly useful for making sure that patients are receiving necessary information in a timely manner and that your practice’s staff and patients are always on the same page. 

3: Complicated Intake Processes

The patient intake processes at urgent cares and emergency departments can often be cumbersome and time-consuming with the amount of patients coming in and out all day and night. This leads to a potential for errors and dissatisfaction among patients.

Luckily, there are digital tools which can create a more efficient intake process via online intake forms which can be completed before the patient enters the waiting room. This streamlined documentation and information gathering shortens lines, reduces crowding in the waiting room and minimizes the chances of any errors during the intake process. 

4: Privacy Concerns

In a medical environment where patients are often crowded together, there can be a hesitancy among patients to share necessary information due to a perceived lack of privacy. Certain systems also have inadequate data protection measures, meaning that patient’s information is not as secure as it needs to be.

Urgent cares and emergency departments need to invest in medical software that ensures secure data handling and compliance with privacy regulations. Staff can also educate patients on privacy measures and their rights so that they are more at ease when sharing personal information with their provider. 

5: Technological Challenges

In a digital world, if a medical practice doesn’t have the proper technological infrastructure, they can struggle to keep up with other practices. This can either be a budgetary issue, or because of resistance to new technologies by staff and patients.

Making sure that there is thorough training and support for staff on new systems can bring your practice up to date, allowing you to foster meaningful patient engagement by making the process less stressful for patients. It can help to gradually introduce these technologies, allowing for easier adaptation into your practice. 

Get Better Patient Engagement Solutions for Your Organization

Patient engagement in urgent cares and emergency departments is crucial for success, and that cannot be accomplished without the best solutions helping you along the way. 

ER Express provides seamless digital solutions designed specifically for urgent cares and emergency departments, enabling them to achieve greater operational efficiency while improving patient engagement in all facets of their organization.

See how our software can benefit your urgent care or emergency department and request a demo today.