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Abstract
Background Adult Radiology faced different challenges in to how to improve the patient care experience by decreasing waiting times between requesting an x-ray and it being performed. It was suggested that service expansion could overcome the problem. The performance improvement team has been called to assess the needs as well as staff demands. In January 2018 the project took place in the medical imaging outpatient department. Timely, efficient, and safe care of patients required medical imaging services specifically to improve turnaround times leading to enhanced patient experience.
Methods The project focused on the ACC clinics, measuring the time from when the x-ray was requested to the time it was performed. The x-ray unit runs an average of 27,000 x-ray tests per year. A process map was done to analyze and help in identifying bottlenecks that are holding up processes and the gaps that are leading to operational problems.
Results The result shows the average x-ray sessions that have been done since 2008 (including business cases), the decrease in sessions in 2015 is due to KASCH Hospital, which moved the pediatric departments. For x-ray sessions in 2017 (23,448 in working hours and 1823 business cases), most of the x-ray sessions were done on Tuesday (28%), with fewest done on Thursday (10%). Upon analyzing the data, the calculated average patient waiting time was 22 minutes. Further analysis showed that 82% of patients had met the waiting time threshold, which is 30 minutes. The medical imaging unit located in the ACC building contains five x-ray rooms; 41% of all sessions in 2017 had been performed in room number 3.
Conclusion Based on the analysis, the team determined that the process is stable and predictable. However, there are several areas for improvement that we would recommend focusing on:
The distribution of the clinic during the week, Thursdays have the fewest clinics; therefore, it is the least utilized day.
The distribution of the rooms to perform X–ray sessions; room number 3 is used most out the five rooms (41%) and room 1 is used the least (11.76%).
Waste of requesting X–ray tests overall hospital. The team suggest establishing small projects to highlight and improve the previous areas and review current staffing and rostering allocations.