Patients used Ocean Kiosk in the first month
Estimated front-desk time saved in one month
No-show rate supported by Ocean Reminders
Markham, Ontario
Markham Rheumatology Hub is a multi-disciplinary space for patients with arthritis and musculoskeletal disorders. With a collaborative approach from medical and allied health professionals, patients will receive comprehensive care focused on optimizing health and function.
For Sujeev Ruban, Head of Operations at Markham Rheumatology Hub, delivering a great patient experience has always gone hand in hand with building a more efficient clinic. As a multidisciplinary rheumatology practice, the team manages a high volume of patient visits, reminders, forms, follow-up communication, and front-desk interactions every week.
As their workflows evolved, they wanted to continue finding practical ways to reduce manual work and give staff more time back in their day.
“Not only do we want to provide a great patient experience, but we also want to embrace tech in ways that would allow for better efficiency. Ocean’s been a key part of that narrative and solution.”
One of the most immediate opportunities was patient check-in. Each in-person arrival required some level of front-desk attention, whether confirming the patient had arrived, managing forms, answering questions, or helping direct the visit. For a busy clinic, those small interactions add up quickly.
At the same time, the clinic wanted better visibility into how patients were moving through their workflows. Pulling operational data from the EMR required manual reports and extra analysis, making it harder to quickly understand what was working and where there was room to improve.
The team needed a workflow that could:
Keep patient check-in simple and manageable with repeated interruptions at the front desk
Give patients a convenient way to complete forms and stay on top of appointments
Help the clinic understand adoption and performance without manual reporting
Markham Rheumatology Hub’s Ocean journey started with basic reminders and forms. More recently, the team added Ocean Tablets for check-in and began using Ocean’s weekly reporting to better understand patient activity across the clinic.
The tablet implementation was quick. According to Sujeev, the clinic was able to get set up in just a few hours with the help of Ocean’s online resources and support team.
“I think we got set up in two hours, three hours tops,” Sujeev said. “Super easy to follow, super easy to implement.”
Today, the clinic uses Ocean Kiosks for patient check-in. If a patient has not completed required forms in advance via reminders, the workflow can be configured so those forms appear during check-in. That flexibility has helped the team adapt the workflow to their own needs while incorporating feedback from the front desk.
The impact of Ocean Kiosk was visible quickly. In the first month, approximately 500 patients used the tablet to check in.
For Sujeev, that number represented much more than adoption. If each check-in saves even one to two minutes of front-desk time, 500 check-ins can translate into nearly 20 hours of staff time saved in a single month.
“Ultimately, we’re giving back time to the front desk so that we can pick up those calls a little bit faster, answer emails a little bit quicker, and just serve our patients a little bit better.””
Ocean has helped the clinic reduce repeated interruptions and create more space for work that needs a human touch, including phone calls, faxes, emails, and in-person patient support.
The clinic has also seen strong results from its reminder workflows, with its no-show rate down to 3.1%.
“For us, reminders are big,” Sujeev said. “The reminders are just so great for reminding patients across multiple modalities."
Ocean’s weekly reporting has also become a valuable operational tool. Instead of manually pulling reports from Accuro, Sujeev can use the weekly summary to understand key activity, including how many patients came to the clinic and how many used the tablet.
“Whoever thought of that, give them employee of the year, because it's one of the most useful things as an operator,” Sujeev said. “In one email, you’re basically able to quantify the patient journey.”
For Markham Rheumatology Hub, one of the biggest advantages of Ocean is that successful workflows can be repeated.
Sujeev sees the clinic’s use of Ocean as more than a one-time implementation. Because the tools are easy to configure and deploy, the same workflows could potentially be scaled across additional clinic locations in the future.
“For me, the use case isn’t just being able to implement these tools one time,” Sujeev said. “We could go out tomorrow, and I’m pretty sure I could deploy five more clinics in one day."
For a clinic focused on patient care, operational visibility, and continuous improvement, Ocean has become a key part of building a more efficient patient journey.
Ocean is a key part of our narrative and solution.
“Collect better patient information earlier.”
“We have seen a significant reduction in no-shows and a drastic decrease in phone traffic for bookings. Staff report feeling much less pressure now that the phones are quieter, and patients appreciate the consistent reminders.”
“Forms were done in person by hand, now a lot of them are completed prior to coming into the office which is a huge time saver.”