Where does the work get repeated?

What we found in the news

AHRQ’s workflow-analysis resource (opens in a new tab) points to a 2015 presentation by Ann Lefebvre of North Carolina Area Health Education Centers. It asks practice teams to examine everyday processes as they actually happen. One instruction is especially useful:

“Record every step, more detail will make it more accurate.”

— Ann Lefebvre, Workflow, slide 10

This is established improvement guidance, rather than a new study of administrative savings. We are drawing on it to consider a familiar operational problem: information that passes through several pairs of hands, with the same work happening again along the way.

Why this matters to us

Imagine an illustrative intake process. A person completes a form with a family member’s help. An administrator types part of it into a record. A colleague asks for some of the same information before the first visit, then writes it in a different place.

It would be easy to call the whole thing duplication. It would also be easy to miss an important distinction. One question may check that circumstances have changed; another may exist because the colleague cannot find the first answer.

At genus, that difference interests us. Making work easier begins with understanding what people are trying to accomplish, including the person answering the questions.

Follow one task from beginning to end

Choose something small enough to examine properly: preparing for a first visit, updating contact details, or confirming a booking. Include the colleagues who handle different parts of it.

Ask each person to describe the last ordinary example they worked through. Where did the information arrive? What did they check? What did they copy, ask again, or set aside until someone could answer a question?

Mark the points where work waits. A five-minute task can spend two days between inboxes. That may be because the next person is unavailable, because responsibility is unclear, or because an essential detail is missing. Each explanation calls for a different response.

Use fictional or appropriately de-identified examples for a group exercise. The team can understand a process without putting someone’s private care information on a meeting-room wall.

Find out what the repeated step is protecting

Ask what would be lost if a step disappeared. A second check can serve a useful purpose. Confirming a changed telephone number with the person is different from copying an old number into another spreadsheet.

Look at who needs the information, when they need it, and whether they are permitted to see the existing record. A shared document is not automatically the right answer. Different colleagues may need different details.

In our illustrative intake, the team might find that a first-visit question is necessary but poorly explained. They could tell the participant that they are checking whether the earlier answer is still right. Elsewhere, they might discover a second form that collects information nobody uses.

Bring the people who complete the forms into that discussion where possible. A question that seems easy at a desk may be difficult to answer on a phone or without help.

Try one change and follow the work again

Pick a bounded change with the responsible team: a clearer handoff, a better place to find an approved record, or removal of an unnecessary copying step. Check any applicable recordkeeping requirements before changing the process.

Then observe what happens. Did staff spend less time searching? Did the person still know what they needed to provide? Were corrections easier to make?

Watch for work moving elsewhere. Saving time for one colleague can create another task for the person using the service. A shorter form is not much help if it generates several follow-up calls.

Give colleagues a straightforward way to flag problems during the trial. A process map becomes useful when it helps the team change something they can actually sustain.

What this means for the people you serve

People should be able to understand why information is being requested and how to correct it. Invite them to point out unnecessary repetition, while making room for checks that protect accuracy and their choices. Their time belongs in the improvement discussion too.

The genus connection

Today, configured genus care-team tools can support intake review and comparison with participant-profile information. In supported workflows, staff review selected values instead of having one record silently overwrite another.

The available modules, permissions, and local process determine how this works. We would want to understand the existing task before proposing a configuration. The purpose is to support sound decisions about information, with fewer avoidable steps where the evidence supports a change.

One question for your next team meeting

Which repeated task would we understand better if everyone who touches it followed one example together?