Irie M, Sakurai M, Kubota H, Minamie Y, Ashida N, Hasegawa T
Department of Medical Informatics, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama, 641-8509, Japan.
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2001;84(Pt 2):1150-4.
In order to estimate the changes in the service for outpatients with hospital movement, patient flow investigation has been performed at both old and new hospitals. IC memory card was handed out to each outpatient, and timestamps and places were recorded on the card at the places that the patient have been by using card writers set at each department. By comparing with two results, old and new hospitals, patient-waiting time at payment counter was remarkably shortened because of the effect of order-entry system. However, there were few changes in stay time at clinical departments. From the results, it is found that optimization of booking system was required for improvement of patients flow at clinical departments.
