Rheumatology Maturing the Message: A Post-Implementation Lookback

This analysis proved that nurse triage standards in Rheumatology clinics reduced per-provider inbox time by 32 minutes per week—opening the door to potential application in other specialties.

Dr. Christie Bartels and two nurses talking together in the hallway of the rheumatology clinic

The Challenge

The Division of Rheumatology was experiencing growing clinical demands driven in part by increased patient use of MyChart messaging. 

They implemented the Mature the Message intervention—nurse triage standards for MyChart messages—with two goals:

  1. Reduce messages forwarded to providers by 20%
  2. Decrease provider inbox time

Now, they needed post-implementation data to validate whether the intervention was meeting those goals.

The Solution

We compared Health Link baseline data against post-implementation performance across four key metrics:

  1. Message volume (MyChart and phone calls) attributed to providers
  2. Provider inbox time (minutes spent in InBasket activities)
  3. Number of messages per 8 hours of clinic time
  4. Minutes in inbox per 8 hours of clinic time

We delivered this analysis in multiple views—by year, half-year, quarter, and month—with graphical representations and helpful benchmarks from General Internal Medicine for comparison.

The Impact

We found that nurses were resolving more messages before they reached providers, and for the first time in years, provider inbox time decreased by 6.5 minutes per day. 

This translates to over 32 minutes per week, or approximately 28 hours per year, per full-time provider. 

Our analysis gave the division concrete evidence that their workflow redesign was working and provided the foundation for potentially scaling the program to other specialties.