Proença Gonçalo, Ferreira Daniel, Freitas António, Madeira Francisco, Soares Ana Oliveira, Ferreira Rafael
Senviço de Cardiologia, Hospital Amadora-Sintra, Amadora, Portugal.
Rev Port Cardiol. 2003 Nov;22(11):1335-42.
The problem of waiting lists has been widely debated in the Portuguese society. In this paper, the authors report the first results of a prioritization approach, started in March 2000. In this program cardiologists and general practitioners work in close proximity, coordinating efforts in order to improve the establishment of clinical priorities, and consequently optimize hospital referral. Working as cardiology consultants, the authors were able to reduce the number of first consultation requests by 77.9% (December 2002). For the first time it was possible to match the number of requests with the available consultation times, halting the growth of the waiting list.
