An Introduction to Treatment Pathways

Treatment Pathways is a complex, sophisticated workflow engine that is an integral part of patientNOW. In cases where the Treatment Pathway is well designed and comprehensive, it can save the practice time and money on labor and increase practice revenue by increasing conversion and streamlining processes..

Definitions

• Workflow. A repeatable set of actions (tasks), triggered by an event, that occur to reach an operational goal.
• Operational Goal. A desired result (e.g. patient books a consult)
• Trigger. An event that is the cause of a particular action, process, or situation.
• End Point. The point at which the workflow ends. This might be a transfer to a new workflow or it may be the end.
• Credentialing. The process of obtaining, verifying, and assessing the qualifications of a practitioner to provide care or services. For the purposes of Treatment Pathways, it is providing information to the patient about the practice and provider that shows they are experts in specific areas (e.g. Botox injections or CoolSculpting).

Best Practices for Workflow (Pathway) Design

There are certain things to keep in mind as you design your pathways and ways to configure for success. For additional information, check out Best Practices for Treatment Pathway (Workflow) Design

Some Workflow Examples

The concept of workflow is not limited to patientNOW. You perform a workflow every morning when you wake up! For additional information, check out An Everyday Workflow Example or A Sample Inquiry Workflow Example

Misconceptions about Workflow and Treatment Pathways

It’s too complicated. Treatment Pathways are as complicated or as simple as they are configured. Many times practices will put too many decision points and/or steps in each Pathway and this causes it to seem complicated.

The staff won’t understand how to use it and won’t do it. The entire staff does not need to understand how to analyze a work flow and configure a Treatment Pathway. All they need to know is the general work flow, the steps for which they will be responsible and how to perform them.

“Pathways only works for Inquiries; we don’t enter the patient unless they schedule an appointment.” While many practices may only initially use Treatment Pathways to insure follow-up on Inquiries, Pathways can help every part of the practice streamline their processes and use the automation to provide a higher quality of care both administratively and clinically.

"Our practice is different; there is no way it will accommodate our processes." Generally, the process of identifying and clearly outlining their work flow allows many practices to streamline their processes and allow for more customized communication. Other than reading the mind of the user, there are very few work flows that are not accommodated in patientNOW.

“I want a human to make the decision, not a machine.” Treatment Pathways allows your practice to build in manual review steps at any point in the process, and the automated reminder to the specified user means that patients will not "fall through the cracks". In addition, performing a work flow review and design process and then working with your trainer to configure your pathways allows you to remove burdensome manual processes that may be duplicative and may actually allow you to improve patient satisfaction.