Visiting schneckmed.org, patients can now schedule appointments with certain Schneck Medical Center physician practices online.
Also, the Seymour hospital enlarged one operating room suite and added a second large OR suite.
These were among the highlights of the recent Schneck board of trustees meeting.
Online scheduling
Debbie Mann, vice president of finance and chief financial officer for Schneck, said the new online scheduling opportunity went live June 1.
It has begun with a set of physician practices, including primary care, integrative medicine, pediatrics and internal medicine. New patients and follow-up visits can be scheduled for primary care and integrative medicine, but only established patients of pediatrics and internal medicine can schedule online, Mann said.
The rotating banner at the top of the website features online scheduling for select practices. Clicking on that takes you to schneckphysicians.myhealthdirect.com/decisionsupport, where you’ll select your specialty and enter your date of birth.
This is where one of the quality safeguards comes into play, said Susan Zabor, vice president of clinical and provider management and chief quality officer for Schneck.
The system would not allow a person to schedule an appointment for someone under the age of 2 for integrative medicine or over the age of 18 for pediatrics.
After entering the specialty and date of birth, a patient is asked if they have been seen by a physician in the past three years and answers questions about insurance, the type of visit needed and reason for visit.
Finally, a list of available providers and appointment time slots pops up.
“If a primary care patient had put in for an acute visit, the first available appointment shows up first regardless of who their primary care physician is just because as you know sometimes, your primary care physician might be filled, but then there’s capacity within the other providers of that office,” Mann said.
Once an appointment has been confirmed, the date and time for the visit, name of provider and office information will appear on a confirmation screen.
Patients can book same-day appointments no sooner than one hour from the time of booking, and the calendars will allow patients to book up to 365 days out, Zabor said.
Also, if a provider is going to be out of the office for vacation, their schedule can be blocked for that time period on the website.
“The system syncs with our MEDITECH scheduling to ensure that the appropriate slots are no longer available and don’t show up on that scheduling site,” Zabor said.
Mann said the online scheduling option has been advertised on Schneck’s Facebook page and in physician offices so patients know about it. It also has been shared on the Schneck team member Facebook page.
Early this month, Mann said the plan is to add pulmonology, surgical associates, colonoscopy consultations, OB/GYN, orthopedics and WellLife to the online scheduling portal.
“We want to make sure we’ve got our process worked out on this particular first set of patients,” Mann said of starting with the current options and then adding others.
Operating room project
Cody Moore, engineering manager for Schneck, led trustees on a tour of the renovated operating rooms on the second floor.
Along with an operating table, both rooms feature storage areas for sterile instruments and supplies and have a floor design based on Indiana State Department of Health guidelines.
A robot will accompany one of the operating tables.
“This table allows you to communicate with the robot and articulate with the robot whether they need to move,” Moore said.
All doors to the suites and the scrub room between them have touchless entry to eliminate contact.
“You never want air from the corridor going into the space. We’re actually moving air into this space,” Moore said. “We can monitor how long the doors were open and what differential pressure was.”
The renovated area also includes a waiting area, three managerial offices, a soil holding area, an education training room, men’s and women’s locker rooms and a lounge.
“This was actually a portion of our old ICU that we converted back in March 2020 when COVID began to give staff clinicians more space,” Moore said.
An open house for staff to see the new suites is Aug. 17, and they will be available for use starting Aug. 23.
Lighter surgery cases, including cataract and pain management, can be performed in procedure rooms on the first floor of the hospital, while more involved cases, including orthopedic and neurosurgery, can be performed in the two newest surgical suites on the second floor.
“The project also allows us to better utilize our OR space,” Mann said.