A website that acts as a one-stop shop for wait times at walk-in clinics is being used by more than half of Waterloo Region’s clinics.
Medimap co-founder Blake Adam says 60 per cent of the region’s walk-in clinics are now using the website he first helped roll out in British Columbia in 2015.
“It really just seemed like a no-brainer to us that there should be an online resource where patients could go to look up wait times at walk-in clinics in their community,” he says.
“When we found that there wasn’t an online resource to share this type of information with patients, we just decided to build it.”
The website works by getting the clinics themselves onside with it. Clinic workers are encouraged to update their estimated wait time on the site every 30 minutes.
Many of those who do report hearing from patients who said they would have gone somewhere else had the site not told them the wait was shorter at their clinic. They also find that fewer people call to ask about wait times when the information is available online.
While the basic wait time function is free for clinics to use, there is also a paid tier which allows clinics to embed their wait time info on their own websites. Medimap is also working on a feature that would allow patients to add their name to the wait list of participating clinics from the website.
Local hospitals have been using similar technology to display wait times on their websites for several years.
