The Challenge
Antenatal patients attending routine clinic appointments were routinely waiting in lines to provide urine samples. On average, four patients queued simultaneously, creating unnecessary delays, crowding in clinical areas, and a loss of privacy that patients found distressing.
Nurses were being pulled away from clinical work to manage the queues, reducing the time available for direct patient care and creating inefficiencies that compounded throughout the clinic day.
The Approach
Structured observation studies identified that the problem was not capacity but timing. The workflow design was mismatched with how patient demand actually arrived. The redesign focused on:
- Repositioning sample collection earlier within the patient journey to smooth demand and eliminate bunching
- Streamlining registration steps to reduce the time between patient arrival and sample collection
- Resequencing patient movement through the clinic to eliminate the patterns that had been creating queues
- Reassigning key non-clinical tasks to Primary Care Providers to free nursing time for clinical responsibilities
The Outcome
Queueing was eliminated entirely. The time from registration to sample collection dropped by 70 percent, falling from 15 minutes to under 5 minutes.
Two nurse positions previously absorbed by queue management were returned to direct clinical care, improving both staff utilization and patient experience.