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Outpatients Balance Overview

Location in SystemView: Overview > Balance Overview

What is it?

The Outpatients Balance Overview component helps hospital teams assess whether outpatient services are keeping pace with demand. It compares the number of patients needing appointments (demand) with the number actually seen (activity) and helps identify where additional appointments or process changes may be needed to stay in balance.

Why it matters

Understanding the balance between outpatient demand and activity is essential to reducing wait times, improving access to care, and optimising workforce planning. The Balance Overview enables services to:

  • Identify specialities at risk of building backlogs

  • Ensure clinician productivity is aligned to demand

  • Forecast capacity gaps before they become issues

  • Support planning discussions with real-time data

  • Justify resourcing decisions with clear, measurable insights

By regularly reviewing balance trends, hospitals can move from reactive scheduling to proactive service management.

How to Use It

Select Region and Hospital

Choose your health region and hospital from the filter bar at the top of the screen. This updates all charts and tiles.

Review Total Metrics

Metric tiles at the top of the dashboard summarise:

  • Average demand per week

  • Average activity per week

  • Balance per week

  • Forecasted activity

  • Forecasted balance

These provide a quick view of whether outpatient services are tracking towards or away from balance.

Explore Specialty Performance

Use the Demand and Activity Metrics by Specialty table to identify underperforming or high-pressure areas.

Click on a row to drill into that specialty. You can also select the specialty from the top filter.

Understand Trends

View 13-week rolling trends for demand, activity, and balance to identify seasonal variation or gradual shifts.

Analyse Clinician Productivity

View charts showing:

  • Average new appointments per clinician (13-week average)

  • Number seen last week

  • Booked and seen appointments for this and next week

This helps identify which clinicians are performing above or below targets.

Filter Options

Filter Description
Specialty Focuses the view on a selected specialty
Include New Appointments Not from Waiting List Set to No if your site doesn’t link new appointment data to waiting list records (prevents double counting)
Target Type Choose how productivity targets are calculated:
 

  • User Input: Manual targets entered into the forecasting calculator

  • 50th Percentile: Raises all underperforming clinicians to the 50th percentile

  • 75th Percentile: Raises to the 75th percentile for more aggressive improvement |

Forecasting Calculator

Use the table at the bottom of the dashboard to input forecasting assumptions.

Column Purpose
Target New Seen Activity / Active Week Manual input of expected weekly appointments per clinician
% Weeks with New Clinics % of time the clinician is expected to run new clinics
% Activity Adjustment for Leave Adjusts targets based on leave or part-time work
Exclude from Forecasting Mark clinicians as excluded if they’re no longer active
 

Forecasting output updates key tiles to reflect predicted activity and balance if targets are met.

Best Practice: How Often Should I Use It?

We recommend using the Outpatients Balance Overview:

  • Weekly: To monitor demand vs activity trends and spot emerging issues early.

  • Monthly: As part of operational meetings or performance reviews to inform planning.

  • Before and after change initiatives: To assess the impact of roster changes, productivity drives, or external supports like outsourcing.

Consistent use helps teams stay proactive—adjusting before backlogs build, rather than reacting once they’ve formed.

Best Practice Tips

  • Review the dashboard regularly with clinic managers and leads

  • Use clinician productivity insights to inform 1:1 or team discussions

  • Use the Forecasted Balance to build business cases for extra sessions or resourcing

  • Make sure forecasting inputs reflect current clinic schedules and leave patterns

If you need help configuring filters or interpreting your data, reach out to our Customer Success team.