Impact of automatized systems in a high resolution model of outpatients clinics

OBJECTIVE: To analyse the impact of computerised systems in Radiology and Laboratory Departments on the reduction in the waiting time of the patients attending to an Internal Medicine outpatient consultation organised in a high resolution model. METHODS: For one year, we studied the delay in diagnostic explorations (laboratory test, simple radiology, ultrasonic diagnostics and brain scanner) that were all applied for and performed in a single day. We compared the traditional organization (n = 312 explorations), in which the results were handed in by hospital auxiliary staff, to a computerised method (n = 457 explorations), which was implemented via our intranet. RESULTS: The global delay decreased 10% in average, the differences being significant only for the variables "brain scanner" (12.7%) and "laboratory" (19%). The average reduction in the waiting time per patient was 11.7%, ranging from 7.8% (when only one exploration was performed) to 13.2% (when 2 explorations were carried out). The percentage of patients who needed to wait more than 3 hours to receive their results also diminished significantly. CONCLUSION: The implementation of computerised systems reduced the waiting time to receive the results of complementary explorations. However, our results were not homogeneous for the different explorations.