Physician-Patient Quality Time at the Clinic, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

摘要

Purpose: The aim was to find the ideal time for the patients to know all the necessary information about their health from the doctor in the clinic and increase the performance of clinics in a better way. Methods: Observational study was conducted at the General Surgery and Cardiology clinics in general outpatient department of a tertiary care hospital in Riyadh, from Feb 2016 to Mar 2017. The time points of 202 randomly selected patients—Arrival time, Appointment time, Entry time & Exit time were recorded using a standardized questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS 21. Results: From Cardiology department, 60 (58.8%) from the forenoon clinic, 42 (41.2%) post noon clinics and that of General surgery department, 76 (76.0%) were from the forenoon and 24 (24.0%) post noon clinics. The overall median waiting time was 29 mts with interquartile range from (11 - 51) mts and a 95% confidence interval for mean between (29 - 41) mts for cardiology and for general surgery, it was 24 mts with interquartile range from 6 mts to 1 hr and 4 mts. The median utilization time was 8 mts with an interquartile range (5 - 11) mts for cardiology and 10 mts with an interquartile range (10 - 15) mts for general surgery respectively. The Pearson’s coefficient of correlation between entry time & exit time was r = 0.96 (P < 0.001) for Cardiology and r = 0.66 (P < 0.001) for general surgery. Conclusions: This study was useful in assessing clinic efficiency and patient flow. A significant relationship was detected between allocated time and actual time spent by the patient in the clinic. This data helped in designing interventions that increase efficient use of resources and improve scheduling patterns.