Lin Yi-Chin, Padman Rema
The H. John Heinz III College, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2013;192:768-72.
Healthcare is primarily delivered in the ambulatory care setting worldwide. The high variability in service delivery encountered in this environment negatively impacts process efficiency and patient satisfaction. In this study, we analyze care delivery process in ambulatory care using time and location stamped data collected via Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)-enabled badges worn by patients, clinicians, and staff as they complete each clinic visit. With the objective of improving process visibility and minimizing patient waiting time, we examine this data to delineate the major components of waiting time and use simulation modeling to evaluate the impact of possible interventions. Results indicate that as a prevalent strategy, different appointment scheduling rules can only reduce patient waiting time in the waiting room. Surprisingly, waiting time in the exam room is unchanged, requiring new approaches to improve care coordination that address this delay. The results also highlight the value of RFID technology and the challenges in deploying them to improve service delivery.
在全球范围内，医疗保健主要在门诊护理环境中提供。在这种环境中遇到的服务提供方面的高度变异性对流程效率和患者满意度产生负面影响。在本研究中，我们使用通过患者、临床医生和工作人员在完成每次门诊就诊时佩戴的启用了射频识别（RFID）的徽章收集的带有时间和地点标记的数据，来分析门诊护理中的护理提供流程。为了提高流程可见性并尽量减少患者等待时间，我们检查此数据以确定等待时间的主要组成部分，并使用模拟建模来评估可能干预措施的影响。结果表明，作为一种普遍策略，不同的预约安排规则只能减少患者在候诊室的等待时间。令人惊讶的是，检查室的等待时间没有变化，这需要新的方法来改善护理协调以解决这一延迟问题。结果还突出了RFID技术的价值以及在部署它们以改善服务提供方面面临的挑战。
