Hospital cuts outpatient waiting list by 72%

THE Mercy University Hospital (MUH) in Cork has reduced its outpatient waiting list by more than 8,000 following a series of initiatives, including contacting patients to check if they still required treatment.

Yesterday, a statement from the hospital said its outpatient waiting list had been reduced from 11,250 to 3,118, a 72% reduction.

The reasons behind the reduction include:

* Validation of the waiting list. This involved contacting patients to check their status and to determine if outpatients remained the most suitable treatment option.

* Additional clinics including the introduction of pre-assessment clinics. This will reduce the average bed stay by one day – from six and a half to five and a half days.

* New services such as the opening of St John’s Men’s Health Unit in June, which provides rapid access for patients with an elevated PSA, an indicator of prostrate cancer. One of the benefits of the move was the removal of these patients from urology clinics allowing other patients with different ailments to be seen more quickly.

* Redistribution of patients, in other words, reducing the patient load for some consultants who were overburdened and boosting the workload of those in a position to treat more patients.

MUH chief executive Pat Madden said streamlining outpatient services had improved efficiency.

“We have reorganised and introduced new internal systems, launched a number of new services and expanded the range of other patient services,” Mr Madden said.

Attendances at clinics have increased by over 16% from 3,000 to 3,500.

Other improvements include a hospital liaison service which enables people to be cared for at home using new treatments; the use of outpatients to carry out some procedures that previously required a patient to be admitted, eg manual lymphatic drainage; a new GP online referral system via the MUH website www.muh.ie; reconfiguration of the warfarin service and a support, education and treatment service for diabetic patients.

The improvement process began in September 2008 when MUH set up an outpatient improvement project to identify performance levels and opportunities to change.

The project was carried out in collaboration with the HSE Performance Management Unit.