The Challenge
The Pediatric Clinical Informatics team was struggling with long and unpredictable triage times for business requests. Without a formal process for receiving, categorizing, and assigning incoming requests, the Director of Clinical Informatics and Education had no visibility into workload distribution or workforce capacity.
Clinicians waited days for support they needed to use the electronic medical record effectively, and the delays were having a direct impact on care delivery. At the root of the problem: 0 percent of requests were being assigned to the correct subject-matter expert on the first attempt.
The Approach
A targeted improvement initiative introduced a structured triage workflow supported by a digital resource allocation tool:
- Incoming requests were routed to the appropriate subject-matter expert based on skill set, workload, and current availability
- Communication loops were streamlined and redundant handoffs eliminated from the triage process
- The team was trained to adopt the new workflow consistently across all request types
- Performance metrics were established to monitor triage speed and assignment accuracy over time
The Outcome
Correct SME assignment on first attempt increased from 0 percent to 95 percent. Triage time fell from a range of one to seven days to just half a day, enabling near-real-time responsiveness for clinicians.
Communication steps were reduced from 11 to 4, dramatically cutting the administrative burden on the team. The new system gave leadership the visibility it needed to manage workload effectively.