Empowering Patients with Cancer to Self-Schedule New Patient Consultations

UCSF Health's Seeking Care Patient Experience Team introduced web self-scheduling to improve fragmented workflows and streamline the process of seeking care from a cancer specialist. Patients now have the option to conveniently self-register and schedule appointments through 2 distinct models: direct scheduling of a new-patient appointment or use of a navigator-led intake appointment. This innovative self-scheduling approach improved the patient experience and contributed to cancer service line growth. Read more about this initiative in "The Evolution of Patient Empowerment: Self-Scheduling New Patient Consultations" in the Volume 39, Number 4 Oncology Issues.   "A lot of our stakeholders felt that patients would not be capable of accurately self-scheduling. [We found] that is not true. We were able to design simplified decision trees for patients to help them have high accuracy selecting the right practice and provider." —Laurel Bray-Hanin, MA   "Almost 50% of the patients who used our online self-scheduling did so outside of traditional business hours…in evenings and weekends. That's the time when they're able to deal with their medical care. And I think that's pretty striking because typically our call centers and staff who might respond to messages are not available during those hours."—Laurel Bray-Hanin, MA   Laurel Bray-Hanin, MA Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Cancer Services UCSF Health San Francisco, CA   Resources Improving the Care of Patients Newly Diagnosed With Breast Cancer—Oncology Issues Bedside Scheduling Improves Patient Access—Oncology Issues Patient-Centered Scheduling How Infusion Scheduling is Like a Game of Tetris—Oncology Issues Breast Care ACCESS Program—Oncology Issues