Forty clinics moved to one way of deciding, and patients waited a third less.
Atlas Health runs forty outpatient clinics and sees 1.2 million patients a year. Waiting times had risen four years in a row, even as the clinics hired more staff.
-30%
Patient waiting times
The situation
The board asked: Why do patients still wait so long?
Atlas had added 180 clinical staff in three years, yet the average wait for a first appointment had grown from 19 to 31 days. Each clinic set its own rotas, ran its own rooms and handled referrals its own way.
Good ideas in one clinic never reached the next one. Any decision that touched more than one clinic went up to the executive team, and waited there for six weeks on average.
What we found
Patients spent 70% of their wait between steps, not waiting for a doctor.
Referrals sat in inboxes, rooms stood empty on Friday afternoons, and specialists in one clinic were fully booked while the clinic next door had free slots.
What we did
Weeks 1 to 3
We followed the patient
We traced a thousand patient journeys through six clinics, from referral to follow-up, and timed every step. The waiting happened in the hand-offs, not in the treatment rooms.
Weeks 4 to 7
We redrew who decides what
Clinics got clear rights over their own rooms and rotas. Four regional forums took the decisions that cross clinics, with a two-week limit on every one of them.
Weeks 8 to 12
Six clinics tried it first
Six clinics ran the new model for a month and cut their waits by a fifth. The clinic managers who ran the pilot then led the roll-out to the other 34.
What changed
-30%
Patient waiting times
The average wait for a first appointment fell from 31 days to 22 within six months of the roll-out.
40
Clinics on one model
Every clinic now works to the same rules for rooms, rotas and referrals.
3x
Faster decisions
Decisions that cross clinics take two weeks, not six, and most never leave the region.
0
New buildings
Every day saved came from how the clinics work together, not from new space or more staff.
Who made it work
“No two-hundred-page deck. One page, three choices and the cost of each. Our board decided in a single session.”
Client
Amara Okoye
Chair, Atlas Health
Led this work
David Okafor
Partner, operations
Let’s find the right question first.
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