Providers and patients of safety-net clinics have traditionally assumed that long wait times were an inevitable result of high service demand coupled with limited capacity. However, there is growing evidence that by reconfiguring the ambulatory care process, clinics can predict service demand, improve productivity, and positively transform the patient experience.

This report, Evaluation of the California HealthCare Foundation’s Ambulatory Care Redesign Collaborative, evaluates the effectiveness of a CHCF initiative designed to rethink and redesign clinic processes to achieve dramatic improvements in performance. In particular, efforts focused on improving patient cycle time, provider productivity, and provider and patient satisfaction levels at nine clinic sites affiliated with five public hospital and health care systems in California.

The report reviews specific findings from several safety-net clinic sites, and concludes that in a short period of time redesign efforts resulted in significant improvements across a range of clinic sites. On average, clinics saw a 45% decrease in patient wait times, and an increase in provider productivity of 36%.

According to the analysis, participating clinic staff at all levels demonstrated support for redesign efforts, and encouraged widespread adoption of such efforts. However, to ensure future success, it will be important for all stakeholders to place greater emphasis on sustainability planning.

The report includes a description of the evaluation methodology; an overview and outcomes of the Ambulatory Care Process Redesign Collaborative; a description of factors influencing sustainability of performance improvements and spread of the redesign model; and recommendations to improve future redesign efforts.

The complete report is available under Document Downloads.