Purpose: The aim was to find the ideal time for the patients to know all the necessary\ninformation about their health from the doctor in the clinic and increase\nthe performance of clinics in a better way. Methods: Observational study\nwas conducted at the General Surgery and Cardiology clinics in general outpatient\ndepartment of a tertiary care hospital in Riyadh, from Feb 2016 to Mar\n2017. The time points of 202 randomly selected patientsâ??Arrival time, Appointment\ntime, Entry time & Exit time were recorded using a standardized\nquestionnaire and analyzed using SPSS 21. Results: From Cardiology department,\n60 (58.8%) from the forenoon clinic, 42 (41.2%) post noon clinics and\nthat of General surgery department, 76 (76.0%) were from the forenoon and 24\n(24.0%) post noon clinics. The overall median waiting time was 29 mts with interquartile\nrange from (11 - 51) mts and a 95% confidence interval for mean\nbetween (29 - 41) mts for cardiology and for general surgery, it was 24 mts with\ninterquartile range from 6 mts to 1 hr and 4 mts. The median utilization time\nwas 8 mts with an interquartile range (5 - 11) mts for cardiology and 10 mts\nwith an interquartile range (10 - 15) mts for general surgery respectively. The\nPearsonâ??s coefficient of correlation between entry time & exit time was r =\n+0.96 (P < 0.001) for Cardiology and r = +0.66 (P < 0.001) for general surgery.\nConclusions: This study was useful in assessing clinic efficiency and patient\nflow. A significant relationship was detected between allocated time and actual\ntime spent by the patient in the clinic. This data helped in designing interventions\nthat increase efficient use of resources and improve scheduling patterns.
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