Pre-Post Intervention Study on Reducing Outpatient Department Waiting time to Consultation at Mettu Karl Referral Hospital, Ilubabor Administrative Zone, Oromia region, Western, Ethiopia, 2019
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2019-09
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Abeba University
Abstract
Background: In Mettu Karl Referral Hospital, long waiting time of registration until to consultation with physician is one of the most problems. Because Patient spend substantial amount of time to get service delivered by health professional in outpatient department of the Hospital.
Objective: The overall objective of the project is to reduce outpatient long waiting time from 128 minutes to 85 minutes and increase customer satisfaction from 5.8 scales to 7.0 by the end of June 2019.
Method: A pre-post interventional study was conducted at Mettu Karl Referral Hospital, from March to June 2019 G.C with sample size of 400 OPD patients both at pre and post intervention period and data was collected by using hospital performance monitoring and improvement manual (HPMI) checklist and all steps of strategic problem solving methods from Ethiopia.
Hospital Reform Implementation Guide (EHRIG) standard was used and the real root causes of outpatient long waiting time to consultation and low patient satisfaction in OPD identified were,long registration process and late starting clinic on time.
Accordingly, re-arranging the registration process to reduce long process and awareness creation and discussion with physician was undertaken as an intervention, and data was entered and analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science Version 21 software. Descriptive analysis was used and results were presented in narration, graph and table.
Result: Patient waiting time and customer satisfaction improved based on pre and post intervention comparisons.
Patient waiting time was 128 minutes before intervention and decreased to 83.5 minutes and the success rate of patients‟ satisfaction increased from 58 % to 71% respectively after intervention.
Conclusion and Recommendation: Committed management of arranging registration process until get physician and satisfaction of participants were the process could be effective to improve unnecessary waiting time in the hospital and continuous provision of follow up resulted in significant progress. Proper implementation and strong follow-up should be strengthened and the significant support from hospital leadership should be provided.
Description
Keywords
Waiting time, Outpatient department, Patient satisfaction, Consultation, Mettu Karl Referral Hospital