Walk-in clinic waits mapped out on website

WATERLOO REGION — People planning to visit a walk-in clinic can quickly see at a glance wait times across Waterloo Region on a free website.

“Rather than calling around to all the walk-in clinics in the community, they can just go online,” said Blake Adam, co-founder of Medimap.

The Vancouver-based site launched in 2015 in British Columbia, and now includes more than 750 clinics in six provinces across Canada — about 40 per cent of all walk-in clinics, Adam said.

Locally, 10 clinics are on the website medimap.ca.

It’s easy to get all the relevant information in one spot. A map on the right marks all the participating clinics, along with the wait time or whether it is closed. On the left, there’s a listing of all the area clinics, including opening hours, location, distance away, and phone number.

Medimap was created out of the realization there was little information about walk-in clinics readily available.

“As a result, these clinics get inundated with calls,” Adam said.

Clinics can also close early because they’re busy at the end of the day or have reached capacity, and people would be frustrated when they showed up during regular opening hours and discovered that the doors were closed.

“That’s a real problem as well,” Adam said.

Clinics can make use of the service for free. There’s an option to pay for premium features such as an analytics of capacity trends. Online check-in is another premium offering Medimap is working on.

Staff at the clinics update the wait time on the site, usually every half-hour.

“It’s based on their best estimate,” Adam said.

Medimap creators want it to become the “ubiquitous online resource” for walk-in clinics.

Adam said the service leads to a better patient experience as well as a reduction in call volume at the clinics.

Both Kitchener hospital emergency departments have a wait time clock on their website, giving people an idea of how long it may take to get care before they leave home.