This winter, the waiting room can wait outside
Every winter, it’s the same scene. From December to February, the room fills up as soon as the doors open. There aren’t enough chairs, people stand in the corridor, and the door no longer closes. Parents hold a feverish child in their arms for an hour, because stepping away means risking their place.
The winter peak isn’t decided at the practice. What is decided at the practice is how people wait. Here are five steps to put in place in November, before the rooms overflow.
1. Make the order visible
Much of the tension in a full room comes from one question: “Who is before me?” As long as the answer sits on a sheet of paper on the desk, everyone comes to check it, and the secretary spends the morning settling disputes.
An order on display, which everyone can see, calms the room. A board or a screen, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that no one has to ask.
2. Let people wait somewhere else
In a full room, many patients stay only so they don’t miss their name. If they knew where they stood, they would wait in the car or quietly outside the practice.
That is the idea behind Dorek. Each patient scans the QR code on the screen when they arrive, gets a number, for example A-008, and follows their turn on their phone. They see how many people are ahead of them and an estimated wait, such as “about 20 to 35 min”. If they turn on “Alert me when it’s almost my turn”, their phone rings and vibrates at the right moment.
The code changes every 2 minutes, so you can only take a number if you have come to the practice. The order of arrival stays fair.
3. Leave no one out
Winter also brings grandparents with their grandchildren, and patients without a smartphone. Whatever method you choose, it has to work for them.
With Dorek, the secretary or the doctor adds them to the queue with one tap. They get a number and are called on the screen like everyone else. The ticket and the screen are available in Arabic, French and English.
4. Plan for urgent cases and no-shows
A full room also means some patients must go first, and others aren’t there when called. Decide in advance who makes the call. In Dorek, whoever runs the queue on the control screen, the doctor or the secretary, taps “Mark urgent”, and the ticket moves to the front of the queue. A patient who is called and doesn’t come is marked as a no-show, and you move on to the next one without waiting.
5. Set up before the peak
Changing how you work on a January morning, with the room packed, is a bad idea. In November, there is time to set up the screen, train the secretary and explain the system to patients over a few calm days.
For Dorek, you need a screen in the waiting room (a TV with a browser, a TV stick or a tablet) and the doctor’s phone. Setup takes a few minutes, the secretary learns it in 10 minutes with the desk card, and the trial is free for 7 days, with no bank card.
What if the internet goes down on a peak day?
Patients follow their turn on their own mobile data. If the practice’s connection drops, the screen shows “Connection lost” with the last known state and reconnects by itself. The doctor keeps calling from their phone on 4G. Nothing is lost.
Try it before December
A sample morning of consultations is waiting for you: tap “Next patient” three times.