Case Study - FUDEM Ophthalmology Foundation
Overview
FUDEM, a visual health clinic in El Salvador, is a non-profit private foundation, which has been providing integral visual health services for thirty years. FUDEM offers services that are accessible to every Salvadorian, primarily focusing on those with low income.
The foundation currently has eight visual health centers across the country. It also operates mobile units that travel to neighborhoods, homes, and farms that do not have access to the services traditionally offered by ophthalmologists.
FUDEM wanted to initiate a digital transformation that would allow them to manage their patients’ experience better, starting by organizing its appointments management system to optimize the flow of patients and the distribution of medical attention schedules. FUDEM successfully implemented Q-Flow’s appointment and queue management system to achieve these objectives.
The Challenge
During 2018, the number of visits in different centers increased significantly, culminating in more than a thousand daily consultations across all the health centers belonging to the network. This presented a major traffic management challenge.
This growth also created a challenge for the health professionals who worked at FUDEM and needed to handle patient records. In order to complete the digital transformation of its health centers, FUDEM needed an electronic record system which could combine the following four elements:
- Data capture form
- Preliminary form
- Ophthalmology physicians form
- Optometry forms
The Solution
The logical solution to the challenge of dealing with so many patients in remote locations was to implement the Q-Flow appointment scheduling and queue management system. This would allow patients to book appointments via FUDEM’s call center.
Q-nomy's local partner, ACF, assisted FUDEM by analyzing their needs and requests, and managing a gradual roll out of the system – thus ensuring a positive reception of the solution and an improved patient experience.
Given that FUDEM specializes in comprehensive services in visual health, ACF took advantage of the flexibility of the Q-Flow platform in order to accommodate established ophthalmological formats, and to digitally incorporate FUDEM’s four forms.
The Results
The benefits of digitizing the FUDEM care centers with Q-Flow were immediate:
- Enabled centers to better prepare for visitor arrivals before opening their doors
- Improved resource management (doctors, nurses, operating rooms, and clinics)
- Optimization of waiting times
- Patient satisfaction improved, primarily thanks to ease of scheduling appointments
- Medical staff satisfaction improved thanks to the electronic medical records solution
- Regarding the transition: the ease of use of the Q-flow system allowed staff managing the solution to be trained quickly
- In the short time since putting the system in place, there has already been a drastic decrease of paper usage
To continue advancing towards its digital health transformation, FUDEM has expressed its desire to move on to the next phase – which would incorporate scheduled video consultations.
