Team cuts wait times in half

The Richmond Public Health Speech and Language team has long felt pride in delivering excellent services to children aged birth to five years and their families.  There was a catch though… wait times for services often reached more than 12 months.

With the return on investment for these services being so high and early identification and therapy so crucial, something had to be done.  In the words of  Dr. Seuss, it was time to:

The team’s thinking led them to tackle the waiting list by:

• training all team members in Lean problem solving tools to eliminate waste in frequently occurring processes (i.e. appointment scheduling, storage of supplies)
• delivering best practice group therapy programs matched to client needs
• capitalizing on the skills of multilingual team members to translate and deliver programs more efficiently and effectively in languages used by clients and their families
• creating service pathways to standardize service delivery across clinicians based on clients’ presenting difficulties.

 The results are astounding.  Children seen for ongoing services in April 2013 waited on average 24 weeks, compared to an average of 59 weeks in April 2012.  They were able to access a wider range of services, including parent training programs and group therapy sessions.

 The team has maintained its internal and external partnerships and population health focus, continuing to provide education opportunities to facilitate language and literacy development in Richmond’s daycares and preschools and building community capacity to support children’s speech and language through its presence at community programs.

Parent and community feedback has been fantastic.  The team’s pride in its services is stronger than ever, as is its commitment to continuous quality improvement, further reductions of wait times and thinking outside of the box to help support all of Richmond’s children to reach their full communication potential and succeed at home, at school and in the community.