Outpatient Waiting Times: Indicators of Hospital Performance?

Outpatient waiting times: indicators of hospital performance?

We monitored outpatient waiting times at UK military hospitals over an 18-month period (September 1996-March 1998). The highest mean waiting times for Consultant appointment were in urology (19 weeks) and orthopaedics (18 weeks). The lowest mean waiting times were in psychiatry (3 weeks), ENT surgery (5 weeks) and rheumatology (6 weeks). Waiting times for surgical specialties were around 50% hi...

Improving waiting times in the orthopaedic outpatient clinic

Background Reducing waiting times for patients is a worthy goal for all healthcare professionals. The means and ability to carry out nerve conduction studies in the hand outpatient clinic has the potential to reduce waiting times between appointments for patients with upper limb neural compression. Methods We assessed the pathway of patients presenting with upper limb neural compression in the ...

Waiting times for hospital admissions: the impact of GP fundholding.

Waiting times for hospital care are a significant issue in the UK National Health Service (NHS). The reforms of the health service in 1990 gave a subset of family doctors (GP fundholders) both the ability to choose the hospital where their patients were treated and the means to pay for some services. One of the key factors influencing family doctors' choice of hospital was patient waiting time....

Waiting list statistics as performance indicators: observations on their use in hospital management.

Improvements in data collection and the types of statistics collected have enhanced the usefulness of waiting list statistics as a measure of hospital performance. But these changes are not sufficient for waiting list statistics to be used effectively for management purposes. The statistics need to be viewed alongside activity data if clinicians and managers are to identify specific areas that ...

Wide variations in hospital waiting times and lists.