Can you imagine if you were shopping online and placing an order took eight hours? What if your order took 26 days to arrive? Sadly, this is the current state of many Americans’ struggles to schedule their doctors’ appointments. We, as physicians, can do better.

Americans are spending an average of eight hours a month managing their health care and are waiting 26 days to see a new doctor in many big cities. In 2020, nearly 44 percent of adults in the United States said they skipped or delayed care—not surprising, considering the many barriers to care. Even more distressing, nearly 100 million Americans don’t even have a primary care doctor. Perhaps it’s just too much hassle for some patients to navigate the path to better health.

Lots of new(ish) technology is available to doctors’ offices to improve patient experiences. The main barrier isn’t complexity or even cost – it’s just overcoming the inertia of change. Change is hard for everyone, but it is frequently said that it is particularly hard in health care. Yet the pace of treatment innovation in the U.S. is astounding, so why not the pace of using technology to improve accessibility and patient engagement?

In the interest of patient convenience, physicians should take a few minutes to see what patient experience tools they currently offer and how those can be improved upon. Start by checking your practice’s website and perhaps comparing it with some other nearby practices.

• Can your patients self-schedule an office visit, pay a bill, or join a virtual visit without logging into an online portal?
• Is there a digital waitlist where patients can secure an earlier appointment time if there is a cancellation? Are the patients notified by text message about their appointments or changes in the waitlist?
• Is messaging a patient’s care team an option when they have a quick question, or must patients call and wait on hold?
• Are patients able to read their lab results or complete pre-visit paperwork from their cellphones, perhaps without logging into the portal?

Speaking of portals, make sure you know the ins and outs of your patient portal from the patient’s perspective. I talk to many physicians who don’t really know how their portals look or work, so how can they make use of them for patient engagement and asynchronous care? And do all your staff have logins to the portal and know how things work from the patient’s side? Are you encouraging patients to actually log in and use it?

The vision is for more Americans to have timely access to quality health care. But, in order to achieve that vision, we cannot just accept the status quo and the tools to make meaningful change are available now. Let’s take a cue from the online shopping experience and embrace digital tools to provide a more efficient, patient-centered health care experience—one that leads to happier, healthier patients.

Robert Murry is chief medical officer, NextGen Healthcare. He brings to this position more than 20 years of extensive clinical experience and background in health IT. Previously, Dr. Murry served as the company’s chief medical information officer (CMIO) since May 2017. During his time as CMIO, he was the “voice of the physician” across specialties, product safety, and government/regulatory affairs. Before becoming CMIO, he was the company’s vice president of clinical product management, responsible for clinical oversight and workflow design.