The study evaluates the effectiveness of the electronic referral system in reducing waiting time for patients who are referred to Royal Hospital for coronary angiography. The Study hypothesis is that with the current workflow, patients who are referred to Royal Hospital for coronary angiography using electronic referral system have relatively the same or higher waiting time when compared with patients who are referred with the fax referral system.
It is a comparative retrospective study that analyzes a random sample of 392 referral requests received from two secondary hospitals from January 1st, 2009 to June 30th, 2012. The study measures the waiting time for each referral request and calculates the median waiting time for the fax and electronic referral requests.
Waiting time for referrals received by fax are distributed according to the following: 1) 98 referral requests (50%) was 3 days or less; 2) 69 referral requests (35%) was 4 to 7 days; 3) 26 referral requests (13%) was 8 to 14 days; 4) 3 referral requests (2%) was 15 to 20 days; 5) 0 referral requests (0%) was over 20 days. The minimum waiting time was 0 days and the maximum was 16 days. The median waiting was 3.5 days. For the electronic referral requests, 1) 77 referral requests (39%) was 3 days or less; 2) 64 referral requests (33%) was 4 to 7 days; 3) 37 referral requests (19%) was 8 to 14 days; 4) 14 referral requests (7%) was 15 to 20 days; 5) 4 referral requests (2%) was over 20 days. The minimum waiting time was 1 day and the maximum was 21 days. The median waiting time was 5 days. The differences seen between the average wait time for electronic referrals and fax referrals was statistically significant (p<0.001). Based on these results a new workflow model was developed and simulated within the Cardiology Department at Royal Hospital in Oman.
The current workflow increases the waiting time for electronic referral requests when compared with fax referral system. Changes to the current workflow are required to eliminate the inefficiencies that hinder the effectiveness of the system
