Shared medical appointments. There is more than one way to leverage a diminishing asset of doctors. The first clever way is to give a doctor more opportunities to reach individual patients by leveraging his time with technology. (The founders of American Well are very good a this.) The second clever way is to give the doctor the opportunity to reach more patients at one time. We do this by putting multiple patients in front of the doctor, at once. These are called shared medical visits (SMAs), and while they aren't sexy, they are effective, and they have no installation costs. Dr. Noffsinger pioneered this concept, as "drop-in group medical appointments," in the 1990s. It turns out that many patients are indifferent to one-on-one time with a doctor -- they just want time with the doctor. When patients are in groups, more information is exchanged, because more questions are raised in front of a diverse set of potential responders. This benefits doctors as well. As an innovation shared appointments hit all marks: extend access to doctors; create efficiencies with resources; and expand knowledge, which is good for quality. We like ideas that can be ported with toolkits. Dr. Noffsinger has one: Running Group Visits In Your Practice, is coming this summer, and it includes a video. 

Interviewed in Managed Care: "The ideal physician to do an SMA is terribly backlogged, has access problems, doesn't see any way out of this conundrum, and is not getting home till 7 or 8 at night."