Improving access to care is not a new concept to healthcare organizations, but it’s recently resurfaced as a top priority for health systems in 2025 as clinician shortages strain hospitals across the country. It forces the question “How can I drive more revenue when my staff can’t take on any more patients?” While CIOs can’t control the amount of clinical staff at their organization, there are effective strategies they can implement to help solve the underlying challenge and increase the amount of patients their system is able to see.
Sending Patients to the Right Facility for Their Needs
Empowering patients to book the right type of appointment for their current situation can help maximize the availability at your organization. Incorporating a symptom-checker and condition-specific education to patients that are booking appointments for immediate care can ensure they end up at the right facility with the provider that is best suited for their specific needs. Through this, patients that belong in urgent care are more likely to end up in urgent care versus your emergency room, which increases wait times for critical cases and over-utilizes ER resources. On the other hand, this ensures that patients with true emergencies go to the ER to get the treatment they need right away, improving outcomes for your organization.
Guide Patients Through Their Appointments
If we've made sure patients are seeking the right type of care, there is another place where the CIO can be a critical difference-maker, and that's on pre-appointment engagement. Pre-appointment intake forms are a common way to enhance patient engagement and streamline the administrative side of appointments, leaving more time for actual care. Around 80-90% of health systems already do this, along with appointment reminders before a visit. So the question is - how can you dig deeper to continue to improve this area?
And again the answer is - empowering the patients. Most appointment reminders simply give patients an address and a suite number/floor for their appointment, leaving it up to each individual patient to navigate a large, unfamiliar building. This results in patients showing up late for appointments, making it difficult for your clinicians to stay on schedule. It can even impact clinicians who the patients aren’t even scheduled to see if the patient stops them in the hallway to ask for directions. Getting ahead of this and answering seemingly simple questions like “Where is the best place for me to park?” “Which entrance should I use?” “How do I get to the elevators?” can significantly reduce the amount of tardy and frustrated patients on a daily basis while freeing up your staff at the same time.
Giving Patients Visibility into Availability
Around 78% of health systems already have adopted some kind of online scheduling, but not all online scheduling programs are created the same. Most programs allow existing patients to make appointments with their primary provider. How can you take yours to the next level?
Having a tool that allows new patients to book appointments is a big way to stand out from competitors when it comes to patient acquisition. But even beyond that, CIOs can dive deeper - into their urgent care and emergency department access. Showing the nearest urgent care and how long the wait is and providing the ability to save a spot can be a game changer for patients. Perhaps one urgent care is a few miles further away but has no wait time. By seeing all the options, patients get in sooner and have a better experience. Equally vital when it comes narrow revenue margins, this streamlined process allows CIOs to ensure that the capacity their system does have is used as efficiently as possible.
Pulling Away From the Competition
Not only can these initiatives reduce the burden on your staff and improve outcomes, they will align patient needs with the availability of your health system. One system estimates an improved mobile access and scheduling solution adds up to 5 new appointments a week, increasing revenue by nearly $1M/year just through those appointments. Layer in the new and retained patients your organization will benefit from and the added features could increase the ROI by tenfold.
Healthcare organizations have traditionally been behind the curve when it comes to technology advancements but most systems have caught up to the basic tools for patient empowerment and engagement. It’s time for CIOs to take their patient-facing tools to the next level to stay ahead of their competition.
As healthcare organizations face new challenges, proactive CIOs can be critical change-agents in improving access to care.
