Overview
The University of Southern California operates in an academic-care environment where physicians balance patient care with teaching, research, and detailed documentation requirements. The organization needed to make pre-visit preparation and clinical documentation more efficient without reducing the quality of the patient record.
USC used OneLine Health’s physician-support workflow to gather information before the visit, organize the patient story, and reduce repetitive documentation work. The intended result was more time for patient interaction and academic responsibilities alongside a more consistent clinical record.
Challenges before OneLine Health
- Complex documentation: Academic specialty care required detailed records, while manual entry remained time-consuming and inconsistent.
- Provider overload: Administrative work competed with patient care, research, and teaching responsibilities.
- Patient engagement: Incomplete pre-visit tasks created avoidable work during the appointment.
- Variable satisfaction: The organization wanted to improve the experience for both patients and the clinicians using the workflow.
Solution
The implementation brought several parts of visit preparation into one connected workflow.
- Automated intake and history gathering: Patients could complete pre-visit questions remotely before arriving for care.
- Prepared documentation: Patient responses and relevant clinical context contributed to structured clinical notes.
- Reduced repetitive entry: Physicians spent less time manually recreating information already available elsewhere in the workflow.
- Support for academic practice: Time recovered from documentation could return to patient care, teaching, and research.
Results
The former website reported 85% patient compliance among more than 375 patients and 75% patient satisfaction across 85 surveyed patients. The account associated these results with easier pre-visit completion, more organized information, and a more prepared clinical encounter.
It also reported 88% provider satisfaction, a 47% improvement in documentation quality, and 1.9 hours saved per physician each day. The narrative linked that recovered time with patient care, academic work, and reduced administrative burden.
Conclusion
The USC story presents connected intake and documentation as support for an environment where clinical care and academic responsibilities coexist. By preparing the patient story earlier and reducing repeated administrative work, the workflow aimed to preserve physician attention for the responsibilities requiring their judgment.