Learn
Research
Original research advancing the science of patient access. Spanning more than a decade, these peer-reviewed studies and industry publications inform how health systems measure, manage, and improve access to care.
Automated Waitlists for Ambulatory Appointment Scheduling: A Multi-Site, Mixed-Methods Evaluation
This multi-site mixed-methods study evaluated automated waitlists in ambulatory care and identified key implementation determinants, including flexible configuration, leadership endorsement, cross-functional governance, and organizational context, that influenced adoption, sustainability, and effectiveness in improving appointment access.
Woodcock, E., Profeta, C., & Siegel, M. (2026). Automated waitlists for ambulatory appointment scheduling: A multi-site, mixed-methods evaluation. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 28, Article e90091. https://doi.org/10.2196/90091
Read the Article ›A Framework for Patient Access Management: Consensus from a Delphi Panel of US Health System Leaders
This Delphi study developed a consensus-based framework defining patient access management in ambulatory care and identified 12 consensus-based determinants, such as executive leadership support, dedicated access leadership, data-driven strategies, capacity management, appointment availability, and patient-centered care connection, providing health systems with an evidence-based framework for designing, implementing, and evaluating patient access strategies.
Woodcock, E., & Profeta, C. (2025). A framework for patient access management: Consensus from a Delphi panel of US health system leaders. BMC Health Services Research, 25, 524. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-025-12561-8
Read the Article ›A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of the Emerging Role of Access Medical Director in U.S. Health Systems
This mixed-methods study examined the emerging role of the access medical director in U.S. health systems and identified key role characteristics, for instance, collaborative leadership, patient-centered approaches, systems thinking, and proficiency in data and qualitative skills, to inform health systems developing ambulatory access leadership roles.
Woodcock, E., & Profeta, C. (2024). A mixed-methods evaluation of the emerging role of access medical director in U.S. health systems. Physician Leadership Journal, 11(2), 13. https://doi.org/10.55834/plj.7643819928
Read the Article ›Automated Patient Self-Scheduling: Case Study
This case study evaluated the adoption, patient characteristics, and outcomes of automated patient self-scheduling across more than 30 practice sites, providing insights into its utilization, appointment patterns, and potential considerations for organizations implementing digital scheduling platforms.
Woodcock, E., Sen, A., & Weiner, J. (2022). Automated patient self-scheduling: Case study. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 29(9), 1637–1641. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocac087
Read the Article ›Barriers to and Facilitators of Automated Patient Self-Scheduling for Health Care Organizations: Scoping Review
This scoping review identified the barriers and facilitators influencing the implementation of automated patient self-scheduling in healthcare organizations using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), highlighting its potential to improve outpatient access while emphasizing the role of organizational and external factors in successful adoption.
Woodcock, E. (2022). Barriers to and facilitators of automated patient self-scheduling for health care organizations: scoping review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 24(1), e28323. https://doi.org/10.2196/28323
Read the Article ›Barriers and Facilitators to Automated Self-Scheduling: Consensus from a Delphi Panel of Key Stakeholders
This three-stage modified Delphi study involving 53 experts from 41 academic health systems identified the key organizational-level barriers and facilitators influencing the implementation of automated self-scheduling, highlighting patient convenience as the leading facilitator and providing evidence-based guidance for healthcare organizations to improve technology adoption, ambulatory access, and implementation success.
Woodcock, E. (2022). Barriers and facilitators to automated self-scheduling: Consensus from a Delphi panel of key stakeholders. Perspectives in Health Information Management, 19(1), 1m. PMID: 35440921
Read the Article ›The Influence of the Scheduling Horizon on New Patient Arrivals
This study examined the impact of the scheduling horizon (the time between a patient’s appointment request and the scheduled visit) on ambulatory care capacity management and patient attendance, demonstrating that longer appointment delays significantly increased the likelihood of non-arrival appointments (16% for specialty practices and 11% for primary care practices for every additional 30-day delay), highlighting the importance of optimizing scheduling processes to improve access, capacity utilization, and clinic efficiency.
Woodcock, E., Nokes, D., Bolton, H., Bartholomew, D., Johnson, E., & Shakarchi, A. F. (2020). The influence of the scheduling horizon on new patient arrivals. The Journal of Ambulatory Care Management, 43(3), 221–229. https://doi.org/10.1097/JAC.0000000000000334
Read the Article ›A Commentary on “Third Next Available” Appointment
This commentary examined the origins, definitions, and practical limitations of the Third Next Available Appointment (TNAA) metric, highlighting concerns about its reliability, validity, and application as a measure of patient access across healthcare specialties.
Woodcock, E. (2019). A commentary on “Third Next Available” appointment. Patient Access Collaborative.
Read the Article ›No Easy Access: Is Failure Embedded in Our Current System?
This article highlighted six key barriers to ambulatory patient access, including compensation models, reimbursement issues, provider limitations, authorization requirements, scheduling inefficiencies, and physician shortages, while exploring strategies such as payment reform, technology-enabled scheduling, self-scheduling, and innovative care models to improve access and patient-centered care.
Woodcock, E. (2018). No easy access: is failure embedded in our current system? American Medical Group Association.
Read the Article ›Patient Access Metrics in the Ambulatory Enterprise
This paper examined patient access metrics in the ambulatory enterprise and highlighted the importance of standardized process and outcome measures to track performance, identify improvement opportunities, and enable healthcare leaders to optimize cost-effective and patient-centered access to care delivery across health systems.
Woodcock, E., Kier, S., & Zhao, V. (2017). Patient access metrics in the ambulatory enterprise. Management in Healthcare, 2(2), 153–164.
Read the Article ›Outside-the-Box Access: Transforming the Patient Ambulatory Experience
This article explored innovative strategies for transforming patient access in ambulatory care, emphasizing the use of performance metrics, data-driven decision-making, referral optimization, scheduling improvements, and patient-centered access models to enhance operational efficiency, financial performance, and the overall patient experience.
Woodcock, E. (2017). Outside-the-box access: transforming the patient ambulatory experience. American Medical Group Association.
Read the Article ›Patient Access: Best Practices in the Ambulatory Enterprise
This article examined how leading academic medical groups are transforming ambulatory patient access through value-based care strategies, highlighting key performance indicators (KPIs), capacity and demand management, predictive analytics, referral optimization, patient acquisition and retention, digital access technologies, workflow standardization, and infrastructure development to improve patient experience, operational efficiency, care coordination, and organizational sustainability.
Woodcock, E. (2015). Patient access: best practices in the ambulatory enterprise. American Medical Group Association.
Read the Article ›