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Saurav Bhowmik
D Y Patil University, India
ScientificTracks Abstracts: J Can Res Metastasis
In today’s competitive healthcare market OPDs are considered to be the face of any hospital, as it is the first point of contact between the patients and healthcare service providers. The impression about a hospital & OPD services often influences the patients' opinion towards the hospital. Therefore it is important to ensure that OPD services provide an excellent experience to the customers. With the increase in the outpatient volume of patient flow, there may be an increase in the waiting time. Patients perceive long awaiting time as barriers to actually obtaining services and thus lead to a dissatisfaction of care of service.
However, reducing waiting time of patients by way of engaging them during their wait time at the lounge will create significant beneficial impact on the quality of patient care. In turn, this will improve patient outcomes and increase the patient satisfaction.
A study was carried out in a Oncology Clinic in Pune, Maharashtra, India to determine the average waiting time spent by the patient in the OPD, to identify the factors leading to high waiting time and assess the patients experience regarding the Out Patient service provided by the hospital.
It was found that the average time a patient spends in the OPD was 70 mins. The major bottleneck causing this high waiting time was found to be the waiting time for consultation which was 35 minutes on an average. Information gathered during the survey also revealed that 33% patients waited for 30-60 minutes for the doctor while 28% patients waited for over an hour. This was one of the major causes of discontent among the OPD patients to which a fall in OPD numbers can be attributed. Therefore, the study was a comparative study on how low cost in-clinic activities increased the Patient Satisfaction during the waiting period in OPD in the selected Oncology Clinic.
Saurav Bhowmik is a writer and an Author with 23 years of rich experience in Teaching and Mentoring Students in Hospital and Healthcare Management. He is a Visiting faculty for Hospital & Healthcare management in “Global Business School & Research Centre D.Y.Patil University, India. He is also a Faculty for Hospital & Healthcare management in Suresh Gyan Vihar University India. He is a management Consultant with various health care organizations for Quality management system.
E-mail: saurav@bhowmiks.com
+44 7362049920
