
10/10/2025
No one wants to wait two months for a doctor’s appointment, especially when it’s for prostate cancer, infertility, or serious urinary problems.
In 2022, Duke Urology faced a median wait time of 54 days, reflecting a nationwide challenge: growing demand for urologic care and not enough specialists to meet it. More than half of U.S. counties lack a practicing urologist and the workforce is aging fast.
That's when Karen Baker, MD, MMCi, a 24-year Army veteran and “access champion” stepped in. Her team led a data-driven transformation, overhauling the triage process, prioritizing complex cases and expanding telehealth and procedure clinics.
Baker serves as the study program director for Duke University's Master of Management in Clinical Informatics (MMCi) program, which blends clinical informatics, business strategy and technology to create leaders who can improve health care quality and reduce costs.
And those wait times? Down 70% to about 17 days.
https://medschool.duke.edu/stories/getting-you-sooner-how-duke-urology-used-data-streamline-care
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A data-driven shift at Duke Urology slashed wait times for men’s health appointment by focusing on the toughest prostate cancer and infertility cases first.