Chair utilisation
The share of a chair's or treatment room's working time taken up by paid appointments. It is the hours actually occupied divided by the hours available over a period, and it shows how much of the clinic's capacity sits idle.
≈ chair occupancy · surgery utilisation · diary utilisation · room utilisation
How to measure chair utilisation
Take the hours when the chair or room was actually occupied by patients and divide them by the hours it was available for work (the clinician's, the assistant's and the equipment's schedule). Look at it by clinician and by day of the week: a single clinic-wide figure hides exactly where the gaps are.
Distinguish planned from actual utilisation. The diary can look full, but if some patients fail to attend or cancel at the last minute, the chair still stands empty. For the clinic this is a direct loss: salaries, rent and equipment are paid for whether the patient turns up or not.
Where the gaps come from and what to do
- No-shows. Appointments are not confirmed the day before, and there is no reminder through the channel the patient prefers.
- Late cancellations with no replacement. There is no waiting list, so the freed-up time is offered to no one.
- An awkward booking grid. Reception books patients haphazardly, leaving short gaps between appointments that cannot be filled.
- Lost enquiries. Missed calls and slow replies on messaging apps are patients who could have filled those gaps.
What to do: make appointment confirmation mandatory, keep a waiting list, design the booking grid together with the clinicians, and review actual utilisation every week, not just planned. Empty time in the diary is often not a shortage of patients but patients lost at the front desk.