Reducing long waiting time at outpatients department of Gahini District Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: According to the Rwandan Constitution Article 41 as it was revised in 2015 states that health is a human right and all citizens have rights and obligations concerning to health, as well as provision of equitable, accessible and quality health care services is the vision of Rwandan health sector. Patients waiting time is the essential instrument used to measure quality of health services. Therefore, for improving quality health services, health organization managers should put in place concrete strategies to reduce patients’ prolonged waiting time to access timely healthcare services at OPD since it is the main gate to the hospital. Objective of the study: The main objective of the study is to reduce excessive time spent by service seekers at OPD of Gahini district hospital. Methods: We carried out pre- post intervention study by using adapted timesheet tool for obtaining results for the implementation of reducing patients waiting time at OPD. All categories of OPD staff provided their opinions through brainstorming about identification of potential root causes and suitable strategies to reduce patients’ long waiting time at OPD of Gahini hospital. During pre- post interventions, we selected 140 patients conveniently as sample size for four days each in January and middle July 2019. In post intervention, 70 outpatients recruited as sample size by using convenient sampling technique for evaluating chosen intervention for reducing waiting time with effect of April 2019 to middle July 2019. Results: The Overall average waiting time spent by outpatients at Gahini hospital was equivalent of 400minutes (6:40 hours) in pre-intervention and reduced to 193min (3:13 hours) in post intervention phase. About 338minutes (85%) of that time consumed by patients while waiting for services and patients spent 62minutes (15%) of that time with healthcare service providers through processing services. Before intervention, doctors’ consultation, cashier counter, registration and nurse triage service points counted overall longest average waiting time compared to other units which were 146minutes(37%), 47minutes (12%) , 40minutes (10%) and 35minutes(9%) respectively. The overall average patients waiting time at OPD significantly decreased from 400minutes (100%) to 193 minutes (52%) with P=0.001 tested by paired t test. Key terms: OPD, Gahini hospital, average waiting, process and overall average waiting times Conclusion: By referring to the baseline findings of the present study, patients spent long waiting time at the three main OPD service points of the hospital. The hospital should continue to implement the current strategies laid down for reducing waiting time because we are still far in comparing with some achieved waiting time at OPDs of other hospitals. Therefore, there is no improved quality service delivery if service seekers at outpatient department could wait excessive hours to receive healthcare services. Again, the researcher calls up concerned organizations to engage in modalities of reducing long waiting time at OPDs since it is the most important tool for measuring the quality of health service delivery.