Authors (including presenting author) :
Yeung KM(1), Leung KH(1), Tam WS(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Specialty Out-Patient Department, United Christian Hospital
Introduction :
Specialty Out-Patient department (SOPD) in United Christian Hospital is a highly demanding working area with challenges of space and high patient volume. A good appointment system can allows spreading out patient visit throughout the day to ensure good delivery of service. Usually, patients attend SOPD with scheduled appointments in which each timeslot is a 15-minute interval. However, overwhelmed appointment schedule in each timeslot resulting of long queues when delays are encountered in service delivery. Prolonged queuing time (QT) results in a crowded clinic and ultimately impact on patient’s satisfaction. To optimize the service quality, we have implemented a strategy called “Appointment Widen Approach” to reduce patient queuing time in our clinic. The trial study has been conducted in our specialty clinic during 25/11-1/12/2021.
Objectives :
To deliver efficient service with QT improved.
Methodology :
Baseline data including patient volume, average QT and 90 percentile QT were analyzed in early November in each clinic. Subsequently, 10 clinic codes were selected for trial, as they have highest average QT and with over 60 appointment bookings per OPAS unit. All patient schedules, whether they belong to new or old cases, are reorganized using widen out appointment method. This involved simple calculation using unit per timeslot method, i.e., we define the time our doctor spent in an appointment in 1 old case is 1 unit, with an assumption that the time spent in 1 new case is 3 units. In order to determine the last booking timeslot in each session, we extend the appointment booking to 45-minute for the last appointment before ending of clinic session. A patient summary is then generated after reshuffling new and old case appointments. Patient with new appointment time are informed by telephone call.
Result & Outcome :
A total of 163 patients are contacted for rescheduling in this study. This accounts to 19.9% of a total number of 820 patients in 10 clinic units. Comparing with average and 90 percentile QT, it is a remarkable improvement in all selected units. As observed, there is a 12.4% - 68% deduction in average QT and 12.9%-71.9% in 90 percentile QT among different clinics. Average QT and 90 percentile drop from 101 minutes to 29.6 minutes and 186.9 minutes to 52.5 minutes respectively in Medical Hepatology Clinic. A total of 11660 minutes adjustment among those 163 patients are noted. Scheduling optimization is achieved in Urogynaecology clinic with a maximum time adjustment for a patient over 120 minutes. Furthermore. it is proved in our trial that QT dropped effectively while average minute adjustment falls over 15 minutes per booking.
