Texas Children’s Urgent Care offers new features to reduce wait times

June 5, 2018

In an effort to better serve patients seeking care at one of 10 Texas Children’s Urgent Care sites, wait times for each location have been posted on the Urgent Care website.

“Our goal is to be completely transparent to our families as to how long it takes for them to be seen,” said Melissa Fischer, director of community and business development for Urgent Care and Texas Children’s Pediatrics. “For families that live in between two locations, we believe that posting wait times will help our families choose which site to visit.”

The information also will help manage expectations around wait times, which average about 17 minutes from check-in to being taken to a patient room. Patients spend about 60 minutes from check-in to check-out.

The wait time feature on the Urgent Care website is automatically updated every five minutes based on the number of providers who are seeing patients and the number of patients who have checked in.

The feature was piloted at Texas Children’s Urgent Care Pearland and was then implemented in Austin. As of May, online wait times are available for all Urgent Care locations.

Save My Spot is also available to patients and families visiting one of our Urgent Care locations, allowing them to reserve a time slot from the comfort of their own home. All the patient family member has to do is pre-register online and the check-in process is expedited. Their personal information is also pre-populated which makes the process easier for existing patients.

“Patients and their families now look for ease and convenience in every aspect of their lives,” said Roula Smith, director of Urgent Care business operations. “You are able to save a spot at places like the DMV and restaurants, why not at Urgent Care?”

Smith added that, Save My Spot allows Urgent Cares to stay competitive as well as evenly distribute patients throughout the day to be more efficient overall.

Save My Spot also was piloted at the Pearland location, and is now available at all Urgent Care locations. More than 600 patients have used the feature to date.

Welcome, an electronic check-in process, is another feature that has been created to expedite the registration process. Check-in is done on an electronic tablet, making the experience paperless. This feature is expected to be rolled out to all Urgent Care locations soon.

Texas Children’s Urgent Care was launched in 2014 and currently has 10 locations, all of which are staffed by board certified pediatricians who diagnose and treat a wide variety of ailments, illnesses and conditions, including: asthma, strep throat, fever, minor burns, influenza, ear infections, allergic reactions and more. Procedures provided include: antibiotic injections, breathing treatments, fracture care and splinting, IV (intravenous) fluids, lab services, laceration repair and X-rays onsite.

For more information about Texas Children’s Urgent Care and its locations, click here.