Description of the Implementation process
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS
This chapter describes the results of the project. Precisely, it presents a description of the data collected, a description of the implementation process, and a presentation of the quality indicators before and after the change of plan.
Description of the Implementation process
The primary problem here was that patients generally took too long waiting at the radiology department. Therefore, the project was centered on reducing the amount of time taken by the patients in the radiology department. The porter who transfers patients to the radiology department and back to the wards always took longer than usual for various reasons. Thus, two interventions were undertaken to improve the patient experience by reducing the amount of time taken by patients in the radiology department. The patients started to complain about long waiting hours, which might affect the patient experience as well as, in my opinion, will increase acquired infection in the hospital, which may lead to an extended stay in the hospital. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Firstly, thinking of policies and guidelines, there is no specific policy that guides the amount of time that is an event by patients at the radiology department. For this reason, much time is wasted. Therefore, the project sought to reduce time wastage by asking porters to wait for patents to be served and leave with them. This was mainly done for short procedures like chest X rays. However, for lengthy proceedings, the second intervention was used. Porters would leave the patients and go for other activities. Towards the completion of the procedure, the technologist calls back the porter to pick the patient. This way, patients do not have to wait long before they are picked back to the wards. The main measurements done included the time the procedure was completed, and the time the patient was taken back to the wards.
Six Sigma
| Step | Tasks | Weeks | Participants | Difficulties/Solutions |
| Plan | Testing for the preordering technique and the waiting time policy was done. | The radiology department technologist supervisor along with the area leader support | Difficulties in drawing conclusions and staring findings. | |
| Do | Measuring waiting time and patient satisfaction. Data collected on the excel sheet as Descriptive Statistics: Time difference between leaving the radiology department and back to the ward Showing the result on a scatterplot graph. | The radiology department technologist supervisor along with the area leader support | Difficulties in defining the use of descriptive statistics. | |
| Study | Analysis of the data collected by descriptive statistics, comparing the analysis of data, and developing charts. | The radiology department technologist supervisor along with the area leader support | Inconsistent data. | |
| Act | Avoid relying on technology to minimize waiting and increase patient satisfaction and, instead, listen to clients’ concerns to offer services that meet their exceptions. Also, use adequate measures to reduce waiting time. | Porters | Collaboration with porters is useful in ensuring that patients are moved to their respective wards after they are served. |
Presentation of quality indicators
When using the PDSA to study patient waiting time, it was noted that some porters took long to return patients to wards after an x-ray procedure. The experiment involved the use of the E-pic system where notification messages are sent to the porter’s pool instead of phone calls only. However, the E-pic system did not reduce patient waiting time considerably. Adding a new waiting time policy for short x-ray examination to require a porter to wait for the patient undergoing quick x-ray examinations, such as chest x-ray, reduced the patient waiting time significantly. Another intervention implemented by the health care technologist was to preorder a porter before the x-ray procedure ended. This reduced waiting time and enhanced patient experience.
Based on the descriptive statistics, the average patient waiting time was 13.17 minutes. The chart below is a representation of the waiting times taken by patients at the radiology departments. It is notable from the chart that most patients took an average of between 10 and 20 minutes waiting.
Figure 1: Durations to transport patients before the implementation of the improvements
Following the implementation of the waiting policy, significant improvement was noted. The application of the waiting policy meant that every porter has to wait for patients whenever they are undergoing short procedures that are likely to take a short time. Thus, in implementing this, it meant that patients would take less time waiting to be transported back to the wards. Less waiting time means improved patient experience. For patients with lengthy procedures, as already described, porters were expected to come for them when the procedure is about to be completed. With these improvements, it was realized that the waiting time reduced to between 5 and 10 minutes.
Figure 2: Patient waiting time after the implementation of improvements
From the histogram above, it is notable that the implemented improvements brought about significant improvements. Indeed, a drop of about 10 minutes was realized. This is shown by a decline from a modal figure of 15 minutes before the implementation of a modal value of 5 minutes after the implementation of the proposed changes. With the changes, the experience of patients in the hospital is also bettered.