Abstract:
Abstract
Introduction: - Wait time in Outpatient department from arrival to get physicians is one of the
major problems for many Hospitals in Ethiopia. Long waiting time has been among the major
factors that affect patient satisfaction and health service delivery, efficiency, quality, disease
transmission, overcrowding and difficulty of moving freely and finally leads to clients not return
back and make staffs demoralized by their works. Accordingly, long waiting time is selected due
to its severity; always the problem was happened, feasible and agreed by others.
Objective: - the objective of this study is to decrease wait time of patients from arrival to get
physicians from 61min to 40min in outpatient of Merawi hospital by the end of September 30
2016.
Methods: - A facility based Pre-and post-intervention study was conducted to assess the status of
time motion studies and survey of waiting time patients from December 2015 to September 2016
in Merawi primary hospital.422 participants were selected for the pre-intervention and post
intervention of assessing the waiting time. For pre-intervention and post intervention assessment
Standardized and organized time listing checklist from arrival to hospital to see physicians were
developed. The time check list was structured to receive information on socio demographic
characteristics of respondents and interval of time. The collected Data was checked for
completeness and consistencies, coded, organized entered by epi-info version 7 and exported
SPSS version 20 was used for cleaning merging and analysis. Independent t-test was used to
check the interventions were significant factor or not.
Results: -The result of this study indicates the average outpatient waiting time is reduced
significantly from 61 min to 34 min with C.I of 95%
Conclusion and recommendation: - It’s concluded that the implementation of interventions
such as availing adequate staff in each department, strengthening referral linkage, electronic
medical record system, early triage of patients before starting time decrease significantly the
waiting time from arrival of patients to get physicians.
Close follow up quarterly evaluation should be done for triage class and sustainable
computerized system for medical recording must be strengthened and Continuous discussion
with outpatient staffs about waiting time should be conducted
Key words: Merawi town, primary hospital, waiting time, outpatient department, time check list