Waitlist Entry Best Practices

The following is a list of suggested best practices to aid in the management of waitlist entries:

Hold regular meetings (monthly or quarterly) with key stakeholders within your facility to discuss issues and monitor impacts on waitlist entries
Provide ongoing monitoring of aggregate and record level data quality through Ontario Health’s compliance and data quality processes
Reduce the workload on facility resources by automatically processing and managing waitlist entries in accordance with a facility’s level of integration. If messages are unsuccessful, the MFM process ensures the accuracy of your facility’s wait time data by identifying and resolving these unsuccessful, or failed, messages.
Use data from the WTIS to review Surgery and Diagnostic Imaging patients currently waiting for procedures and/or ALC patients currently waiting for discharge to identify issues and monitor trends
Discuss strategies around facilitating wait time data entry for your end users. Suggest the following:
- Prioritize Surgical, DI and ALC waitlist entries and enter them at a certain time each day
- Designate a single person for all wait time data entry, or if your office has multiple administrators, you may consider rotating the “entry” person each week/day
- Connect new users with more advanced users who can help coach and provide practical suggestions to help work more efficiently
- Create a Wait Time committee or team within your facility