Use of a Patient Visit Tracker Tool to Advance Experiential Learning in Systems-Based Practice and Quality Improvement in a Medical Student Clinic

Abstract

Purpose: Poorly designed healthcare systems increase costs and preventable medical errors. Systems-based practice (SBP) education allows physicians to identify systemic errors and implement quality improvement (QI) initiatives. Here we describe this experiential learning in a medical student-faculty collaborative practice (MSFCC), which challenged medical students to identify inefficiencies, implement interventions, and track the results. Methods: In order to enhance medical students’ understanding of SBPs and QI, we identified patient wait times as an area for improvement. We designed an electronic Patient Visit Tracker dashboard to track the status of each patient’s visit and calculate total time and wait times, and implemented interventions based on the results to further streamline the clinic flow. Results: A comparison of clinic times prior to and following the intervention period revealed that the mean total time and the visit time decreased significantly. Other components such as student history-taking time showed a trend toward reduced delays but were not statistically significant. These results suggest that the interventions may have improved clinic flow without sacrificing patient time with the healthcare team. Conclusions: Our model allowed students to drive their own active learning in a practical clinical setting, providing early and unique training in crucial QI skills.