A sample plan

Your project brief

Here is what we understood from our conversation. Please read it over and tell us if anything is off.

Your business

You run a family-run physiotherapy clinic with three physiotherapists and a massage therapist, working in physiotherapy and rehabilitation, with 6 people on the team and around 900 customers. The people who would use it are your own staff and your customers, mostly on phones and computers alike. You operate from one clinic on the high street.

The problem to solve

Today, the front desk spends most of the morning on the phone booking, moving and confirming appointments, and about one in eight patients does not turn up. You would like to get to a point where patients book and move their own appointments online and get a reminder, so the front desk only deals with the exceptions. You would call this a success when you see about eight hours a week back at the front desk and missed appointments down by half. This matters now because a fourth physiotherapist joins in the spring and the phone will not cope.

A day in the life

1. Booking an appointment. Priya at the front desk handles this whenever a patient calls or emails asking for a session. First, Priya checks each therapist's column in the shared spreadsheet for a free slot. Then she types the patient's name and phone number into the slot. Finally, she reads the time back and asks the patient to write it down. At the end there is an appointment in the spreadsheet. This happens about 30 times a day. The painful parts today: two people editing the spreadsheet at once overwrite each other and evening and weekend requests wait until the next morning.
2. Reminder calls and texts. The front desk handles this whenever it is the day before a patient's appointment. First, Priya prints tomorrow's column from the spreadsheet. Then she calls or texts each patient from the clinic mobile. Finally, she marks the ones who replied. At the end there is a list of confirmed and unconfirmed patients for tomorrow. This happens every afternoon. The painful parts today: it takes about an hour and a half and texts from the clinic mobile cannot be seen by anyone else.
3. Taking payment after a session. Whoever is at the front desk handles this whenever a patient finishes their session. First, the therapist tells the front desk what was done. Then the patient pays by card at the desk. Finally, the amount is written in the spreadsheet next to the appointment. At the end there is a paid session recorded against the appointment. This happens every session. The painful parts today: patients who leave in a hurry are invoiced by email days later and the month-end reconciliation with the card machine takes an evening.
4. Sending exercise sheets. Each physiotherapist handles this whenever a patient is given exercises to do at home. First, the therapist photocopies the relevant sheets. Then they hand the pack to the patient. Finally, they note in the paper file which sheets were given. At the end there is a printed pack of exercises. This happens a few times a day per therapist. The painful parts today: patients lose the sheets and call to ask what they were meant to do.

Your records and the tools you use

Right now you rely on a shared spreadsheet for appointments and payments, a card machine for taking payment at the desk, Google Calendar for the therapists' own diaries and paper files for treatment notes. The new software has to work alongside Google Calendar. As things stand, patient names, phone numbers and the last year of appointments are in the spreadsheet; treatment notes are on paper. In round numbers: about 900 patients and 7,000 sessions a year. As for how tidy those records are, phone numbers are mostly current; email addresses are missing for about a third of patients. We would bring your existing records across into the new software.

Budget, timing and must-haves

Your budget is between $15,000 and $30,000. You need it ready before the new physiotherapist starts in the spring, because the phone load goes up by a third once the fourth therapist is seeing patients. It must patients can book and move appointments online, a reminder the day before and works on a phone. It would be nice if it could also pay online when booking and email the exercise sheets instead of printing them. It will handle health records and payments, so we will treat that information with extra care. You have to follow HIPAA.

Who decides and what happens after launch

Sam, the owner and lead physiotherapist makes the final call, with input from Priya at the front desk and the two other physiotherapists. After launch, you expect someone to call during clinic hours if bookings or reminders stop working. You plan to decide within the month, after talking it through with the team.

Assumptions we've made

These are things we filled in ourselves. Please tell us if any of them are wrong.

• Your industry: physiotherapy and rehabilitation
• How many customers you serve: 900
• Workflow 3: how often it happens: every session
• Workflow 4: how often it happens: a few times a day per therapist
• How much is there: about 900 patients and 7,000 sessions a year
• Rules you have to follow: HIPAA

Open questions

• None. Nothing is waiting on an answer from you.