Queen Square Doctors & Family Health Team

Reasons for adopting CHIME

As a large and busy primary care clinic in Brampton, Ontario, we were interested in CHIME primarily as a way to address rising overhead costs and growing operational inefficiencies. Like other primary care clinics in Ontario we faced the same financial pressures, increased operational demands, and challenges meeting the competing expectations of patients, clinicians, and government. Specifically, our clinic was facing:

High overhead costs

With payroll exceeding 50% of total clinic expenses, limiting administrative support and physician efficiency. We thought the CHIME could address this by tackling one of the root causes: manual, labour-intensive workflows for patient check-in, rooming, and room turnover that required large numbers of receptionists and “runners”.

Inefficient use of physical clinic space

High-volume physicians required multiple exam rooms simultaneously, constraining growth without renovation. The challenge — which we put in front of CHIME — was how to tackle this issue without compromising patient care, increasing costs, or diminishing the staff and physician experience.

Patient dissatisfaction during peak times

These issues were visible, stressful, and difficult for staff to manage in real time as they often stemmed less from clinical care and more from operational bottlenecks: long and unpredictable phone wait times; front-desk congestion; patient anxiety around their wait times. These were all issues that we were eager for CHIME to tackle.