The Analysis of Appointment System to Reduce Outpatient Waiting Time at Indonesia's Public Hospital

Abstract

Outpatient services have become an important component of health care. By hidebound thinking, the medical profession emphasized that a physician's time is more valuable than a patient's time. Consequently, the appointment system was designed to min imize physicians' idle time overlooking patients' waiting t ime. Th is is no longer valid in today's consumer oriented society. Long wait ing times for t reat ment in the outpatient department followed by short consultations has long been a complaint. Nowadays, customers use waiting time as a decisive factor in choosing a service provider. Therefo re, idle time of both parties must be considered in designing an appointment system although these two objectives are contradicted to each other. This research aims to provide a study of the major causes of patients length of time for medical t reat ment in a outpatient clinic at one of Indonesian public hospital and also provide recommendation on the best strategy to improve the appointment system so that can maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of resource and capacity. The hospital queue model use single-channel mu ltiphase systems. Queuing theory be the first tool to look at patient wait ing times on each server independently. The results show that the hospital should change the appointment system for physicians. Applying 'doctor on call' system may appear to reduce doctor's idle time but lead to high patients' wait ing times. In some cases, the appointment system make doctor to be back and forth to the hospital, so it was not directly affect the productivity of a doctor. Not only construct the appointment system, they should take attention of patient flow and set scheduling of the capacity to increase the effective and efficiency outpatient department performance.