Factors Determining Wait-Time and Patient Satisfaction at Post-Operative Orthopaedic Follow-Up

• 作者: David Parente Joel Davies Khalid Syed Samuel Johnson
• 来源期刊: 医学心理学(英文)
• 学科: 医学
• 关键词: Wait TIMES ORTHOPEDIC CONSULTATION
• 年，卷（期）: 2013,（1）
• 页码范围: 47-53
• 页数: 7页
• 分类号: R73

摘要

Introduction: There has been increasing attention on the evaluation of the efficiency and delivery of healthcare while trying to maintain the quality of service patients expect. A variety of studies have looked at various, non-orthopaedic surgical outpatient clinics and the factors involved in patient satisfaction and wait-time. The purpose of this study was to identify if such a relationship exist between the environmental, patient, and social-demographic factors to patient wait-time and satisfaction at an orthopaedic follow-up clinic. Methods: Patients were tracked through the clinic at various time points: appointment time, registration time, time to diagnostic imaging, time to being called into an exam room, time to being seen by a trainee, time to being seen by the staff surgeon, and time of leaving the clinic were collected. Overall satisfaction scores were calculated as per the VSQ-9. Patients who presented for their two or six week follow-up appointment were compared to those presenting for their three, six, or 12 month follow-up appointment. Result: A total of 80 patients were enrolled in this study. There was a good distribution of age and level of education. Ethnicity was heavily weighted towards the white population (76.6%) with the next largest ethnic group being East/Southeast Asian (7.8%). The mean total wait-time in clinic was 126.7 ± 46.5 minutes and the mean total VSQ-9 score was 78.5 ± 14.6. The longest time interval experienced by the patients in clinic was waiting for a consultation room after completion of imaging investigations (46.3 ± 33.3 min). The shortest time interval occurred once patients were in the consultation room and waited to be seen by the trainee or surgeon (15.0 ± 9.7 min. There were no statistically significant differences between the total wait-time in clinic, total VSQ-9 scores and age, gender, ethnicity, education, location of injury and overall health. Environmental variables were analyzed and it was found that patients reported greater satisfaction when seen only b