When a system is inefficient, please stop coming up with BULLCRAP
execuses like age of patients!!! If age is the reason, what the
FARK are Polyclinics for??? Cater Only for the young so it is
faster and shorter waiting time??
Most God Damned excuse I Have ever heard!!!
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Shorter waiting time tops wish list of improvements for
polyclinics
By Hasnita A Majid, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 29 December 2006
1919 hrs
SINGAPORE: Shorter waiting time to see the doctor tops the list of
improvements that patients wish to see at polyclinics.
59-year-old Yeo Nam Koon has hypertension and has been going to
Geylang Polyclinic, which is under the SingHealth cluster, for the
past 4 years.
He said that he has to wait for up to two hours to see the doctor
most of the time.
A Health Ministry survey found that patients at Geylang Polyclinic
had to wait the longest up to 175 minutes or almost 3 hours to
see a doctor, from the point of registration to actual
consultation.
Some 8,200 patients were polled over a 4-month period for this
survey.
Geylang Polyclinic says one reason for the long wait could be its
patient profile.
More than 60 percent of its 18,000 patients have chronic diseases
such as diabetes and hypertension, which require longer
consultation time.
Dr Ruth Lim, Director, Geylang Polyclinic, says: "Many of these
patients have complex medical problems with multiple diagnoses. If
I have an elderly patient, they actually prefer to do a one-stop
visit, which means that at the same visit, they would like to have
their lab test, see the nurses, get their eye test or their feet
examined, and then see the doctor.
So all in all, the waiting time would definitely be longer as
opposed to a young patient who came in with a simple cough and
flu.
Health Monitoring Station is one way of making better use of
patients' waiting time. Usually done in the doctors' clinic,
patients with chronic diseases can now check their BMI and blood
pressure at this station. This will help free up the doctor's time
so that he can devote more time on consultation.
Another measure to cut down waiting time is by encouraging patients
with stable health condition to enrol in a remote care programme
where patients can SMS or email their blood pressure reading to the
polyclinic every three months.
Managing chronic patients well has worked for Pasir Ris Polyclinic
which has one of the shortest waiting periods.
Dr Tan Ngiap Chuan, Director, Pasir Ris Polyclinic, says: "If such
cases are reduced, we can actually divert our resources to manage
other patients. So it's very important that we treat our chronic
patients well and when we are able to monitor their condition, we
will not have a huge attendance at the clinic."
Other measures adopted by SingHealth polyclinics to cut down
waiting time include having a registration and appointment system
for immunisation and child development assessment as well as
advising patients to avoid peak periods.
The Health Ministry survey also showed that 7 in 10 respondents
think polyclinics deliver value-for-money service quality and
facilities.
At Ang Mo Kio Polyclinic for example, more than 75 percent of
patients were happy with the services, although it is Singapore's
busiest, serving more than 27,000 patients.
Over 67 percent of respondents also rated the overall polyclinic
experience to be above expectations.
The Health Ministry says that the polyclinics have been trying to
improve their services over the years.
More doctors have been deployed to meet rising patient load such as
reducing the number of average patient load to 58 patients per
doctor per day.
More enhancement of work processes are in the pipeline, including
improving the appointment system.
Polyclinics are also using technology such as e-prescription to
speed up the consultation processes. CNA/so
