Patient Attitude towards Waiting in an Outpatient Clinic and its Applications

Huang, Xiaoming

doi:10.1177/095148489400700101

Cited by 106 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The relationship between longer waiting time and decreased satisfaction for specialty outpatient office visits [8,15,30], emergency medicine [26,27], and primary care is consistent across studies [3,6,14,23]. One study of surgery outpatients found that patients remained ''reasonably satisfied'' after up to 37 minutes of waiting time [15]. Also, together with the quality of the doctor's explanation, longer wait time was associated with patients deciding not to return to the same doctor in a variety of specialty outpatient clinics [8,30].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous studies, predominantly in the primary care setting, identified time spent with the physician as an important predictor of patient satisfaction [3,8,12,26]. Most of the studies on time spent in the office uses a cross-sectional survey design in which patients are asked-at a time remote from the visit-about their satisfaction and their perceived waiting time and time with the physician [3,8,14,15,27,30]. An objective measure of time is needed because satisfied and dissatisfied patients might have differently biased estimates of these times.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Time Seeing a Hand Surgeon Is Not Associated With Patient Satisfaction

Teunis

Thornton

Jayakumar

et al. 2015

Clinical Orthopaedics &Amp; Related Research

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Background Previous studies, predominantly in the primary care setting, identified time spent with the physician as an important predictor of satisfaction. It is unknown if the same holds true in hand surgery. Questions/purposes Is patient satisfaction measured immediately after an office visit associated with the duration of time spent with the hand surgeon? What other factors are associated with satisfaction directly after the visits and 2 weeks after the appointment?Methods We prospectively enrolled 81 patients visiting our hand and upper extremity surgery outpatient clinic. We recorded their demographics and measured physical function, pain behavior, symptoms of depression, time spent in the waiting room, time spent with the physician, and patient satisfaction. Office times were measured using our patient ambulatory tracking system and by a research assistant outside the clinic room. To assess satisfaction we used items from the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey (a federally developed standardized survey instrument) relevant to our study. Two weeks later, 51 (64%) patients were available for telephone followup and the same measures were completed. Mean time spent with the hand surgeon was 8 ± 5 minutes and mean in-office wait time to see the hand surgeon was 32 ± 18 minutes. A priori power analyses indicated that 77 patients would provide 80% power to detect an effect size f 2 = 0.18 for a regression with five predictors. This means that we would detect time spent with the physician as a significant factor if it accounted for 7% or more of the variability in satisfaction. Results Time spent with the hand surgeon was not associated with patient satisfaction measured directly after the visit (r = -0.023; p = 0.84). Longer time waiting to see the physician correlated with decreased patient satisfaction (r = -0.30; p = 0.0057). The final multivariable model for increased satisfaction directly after the office visit included shorter waiting time (regression coefficient [b] -0.0014; partial R 2 0.094; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.0024 to -0.00042; p = 0.006) and being married/living with a partner (b 0.057; partial R 2 0.11; 95% CI, 0.021-0.093; p = 0.002 [adjusted R 2 0.18; p \ 0.001]). Similarly, multivariable analysis found higher patient satisfaction 2 weeks after the visit to be independently associated with shorter waiting time (b -0.0037; partial R 2 0.10; 95% CI, One of the authors (DR) certifies that he, or a member of his immediate family, has or may receive payments or benefits, during the study period, from Wright Medical (Memphis, TN, USA) of less than USD 10,000; Skeletal Dynamics (Miami, FL, USA) of less than USD 10,000; Biomet (Warsaw, IN, USA) of less than USD 10,000; AO North America (Paoli, PA, USA) of less than USD 10,000; and AO International (Dubendorf, Switzerland) of less than USD 10,000. All ICMJE Conflict of Interest Forms for authors and Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research 1 editors and board members are on file with the publication and can...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time Seeing a Hand Surgeon Is Not Associated With Patient Satisfaction

Teunis

Thornton

Jayakumar

et al. 2015

Clinical Orthopaedics &Amp; Related Research

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“…5 Huang reported that patients are generally happy to wait for up to 37 minutes when arriving on time, and no more than 63 minutes when arriving late. 6 Patients who arrived more than 15 minutes early expected to be seen earlier. Huang's paper suggests measures to improve satisfaction.…”

Section: Waiting Time and Appointmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…5,6 The Patients' Charter, introduced in 1991, set the standard that outpatients should be 'given a specific appointment time and be seen within 30 minutes of that time' . This section outlines research into causes of delays and ways of reducing this wait.…”

Section: Running An Outpatient Servicementioning

confidence: 99%

Medical outpatients: changes that can benefit patients

Dunnill

Pounder

2004

Clinical Medicine

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-This article reviews the current literature relating to medical outpatient services. It has been produced as part of the RCP/NHS Confederation working party on outpatients departments. The article deals with surveys of patient views on outpatients, suggested ways of improving the service, and how best to accommodate teaching in this setting. An RCP booklet, 'How user friendly is your outpatient department?', has also been produced and is available from the college. KEY WORDS: ambulatory care, appointment, booking, clinic, outpatient, waiting timeMost physicians spend a significant part of their week working in the outpatient department but although the consultation in the outpatient clinic is an important part of patients' hospital care, it is traditionally an under-resourced area of the hospital. There has been little research into improving the service and, as a result, the experience for patients is not always as good as it should be.A well-run clinic will not only improve the experiences of patients but also the working lives of clinic staff. It may reduce the need for admission to hospital, both for disease control and for its investigation. 1 There is currently also political pressure for change, particularly regarding waiting times. The Government has recently issued a target of a maximum of three months wait for all outpatients' appointments by 2005. 2 This article reviews the literature relating to outpatients, with a focus on medical outpatients. The Working Party's aim was to develop recommendations to enable physicians to improve the experience for patients attending their clinics, and the work culminated in the publication of a booklet for health professionals. 3 Inevitably, in this paper there is some overlap with managerial issues (for example, direct booking systems or computer referral systems), and while some of these are beyond the scope of this article, they are addressed where physicians will be expected to work with managers to improve service delivery. Search strategyThe bibliographic databases Medline and Embase were searched for articles on outpatients, hospital outpatient clinics, outpatient departments or ambulatory care. Papers on day care were excluded. The results were limited to the UK, to the years 1966-2002 and to papers in English with abstracts available. Surveys of patient attitudes and satisfaction Waiting time and appointmentsLong waits for a first outpatient appointment are a common cause of patient dissatisfaction. However, one survey of a gastroenterology clinic showed that patients placed a similar value on waiting time for investigation and waiting for the first appointment: 4 a clinic that had a two-month wait for appointment, but offered immediate investigation was preferable to one with a two-week wait for appointment but a three-month wait for investigation. The authors suggest that to focus just on 'wait to first appointment' is too simplistic and does not take account of patient preferences.The length of time patients have to wait in the clinic before ...

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“…Patient satisfaction was reported to have an impact on health service quality [1]. Several studies have investigated the factors affecting patient dissatisfaction and addressed that patient waiting time was one of the major causes [2,3,4,5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patient waiting time and satisfaction in GP clinic at a tertiary hospital in Thailand

et al. 2018

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Abstract. This study aims to investigate patient waiting time in General Practice Clinic and identify the main cause of the problem through patient satisfaction survey. 9,232 Patients were randomly observed and quantitative data such as arrival time and waiting time were recorded. Other 1,200 patients were randomly selected for satisfaction survey which is considered as qualitative data. The result indicated that average waiting time of patients was 175.87 minutes with standard deviation of 68.66 minutes. Waiting time at GP clinic appeared to be the longest with an average of 92.9 minutes and standard deviation of 43.4 minutes. Also, based on the obtained data, patients remained positive until their waiting time exceeded 2 hours.

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Patient Attitude towards Waiting in an Outpatient Clinic and its Applications

Cited by 106 publications

References 4 publications

Time Seeing a Hand Surgeon Is Not Associated With Patient Satisfaction

Time Seeing a Hand Surgeon Is Not Associated With Patient Satisfaction

Medical outpatients: changes that can benefit patients

Patient waiting time and satisfaction in GP clinic at a tertiary hospital in Thailand

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