The Scheduling module of HANDS is a brand-new functionality for setting up and maintaining WIC clinic schedules and for making appointments for clients within a WIC family. HANDS Scheduler offers a variety of appointment styles for managing WIC clinic flow and appointment availability. This flexibility will help local agencies to better manage the daily clinic service flow and meet mandatory federal guidelines for the 10/20 rule for scheduling WIC clients. HANDS Scheduler allows traditional scheduling, open access scheduling, centralized appointment scheduling, walk in appointments and group appointments. The system has indicators to track all appointment activity. As a result, there will be a variety of Scheduling Reports which help clinic administration determine if the current schedule is meeting the requirements indicated by Arizona WIC Policy and Procedures. The design of the HANDS Scheduler area provides staff with easy navigation for scheduling and updating WIC appointments. For example, there are at least three different ways to add appointments for a WIC client located in both the Scheduler and WIC Services areas of HANDS. A clinic user could make an appointment for a client while in the certification area or by going directly to Scheduler. In addition, all client records within a family will be made available on the same screen for making, rescheduling or cancelling WIC appointments as needed.
Ease of access, variety and flexibility are also offered to Local Agencies in the setting up of clinic schedules. HANDS Schedule templates offer many appointment types, timeslots and columns which may be opened or blocked as needed without having to alter the entire schedule. Changes to a clinic schedule may be added for a certain day or range of days and HANDS provides alerts if there are any existing conflicts between the new and existing schedule.
Services, Provider Columns, Time Slots & Nutrition Groups
HANDS allow a considerable amount of flexibility when setting up and maintaining the clinic schedule. The schedule day is divided into Services, Provider Columns and Time Slots. The types of services and providers which a local agency chooses are maintained by each State Agency, including Navajo Nation, Guam, CNMI, and American Samoa. The local agencies determine the starting and ending times as well as the number of services and service providers per schedule day.
Key Points or Highlights
• Minimum duration for an appointment or a time slot is 15 Minutes.
• Appointment is at individual client level, so only one client will be scheduled in a timeslot for an appointment.
• ALL services include every service type, unlike AIM, which excluded High Risk, Nutrition Education and Medium Risk service types.
• Column Names and Services are base table controlled at Local Agency Level.
• Creating Templates, Clinic Calendar Setup and Appointment Scheduler can be accessed for any clinics within a local agency without having to log off.
• Automatic Client Transfer occurs when the client shows for the appointment and checks in to that appointment, which is scheduled in a clinic different from the clinic the client is enrolled in.
• Staff Members are not associated with appointment scheduler.
• Walk-in appointments are not shown in Calendar/Appointment scheduler.
• Searching for a family can be done in the Appointment Sheet using the Family ID only, or the user can search using either WIC or CSFP Services Client/Family search, select the record, and navigate to the Appointment Sheet.
• Three appointment types are color coded – Certification, Nutrition Discussion and High Risk Nutritionist appointment types. The system displays the appointment type of the service with the highest priority. For example, if a family has one participant needing a high risk contact and another participant requiring nutrition discussion, the high risk appointment color would be displayed in the scheduler. The High-Risk Nutritionist appointment type has the highest priority, followed by the Certification appointment type, and the Nutrition Discussion is the lowest priority.