Essay On Waiting Time

Introduction

In past years, the concern for service quality reached unprecedented level in various sectors. The success of any healthcare setup depends upon the number of patients coming to Outpatient Department (OPD) each day, the efficiency of the health team, the availability of services and the quality of treatment offered1. Outpatient department has become an essential part of the hospital due to the fact that it is the first step of the treatment system2 and point of contact between a hospital and community.OPD is often considered as the window to hospital services and patient’s impression of the hospital begins at the OPD3. Now a day’s OPD services of the majority of hospital are having queuing and waiting time problem. Waiting time refers to the time a patient waits in the

Outpatient waiting time has two important aspects. One aspect is that the waiting time of the patients referred by the general practitioner who is created from the time of the entry to the hospital for receiving services, creates great costs and can be modified by techniques of reducing the waiting time. The other one is the waiting time from the time arrival to the hospital till entering to the examination room. The second part of this time is the waiting time which its major part is related to the hospital and comes to the existence in the hospital. And for reducing the waiting time hospitals should approach through basic interventions. Regarding the first domain, policy makers should provide the essential procedures and guidelines so that the waiting time for the health care services is reduced to the minimum7

Objectives of the study:

1. To calculate the patient waiting and consultation time for each specialty.

2. To analyze the cause and effect for the delay.

3. To recommend appropriate suggestions to optimize the waiting time in OPD.

Material and