• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.77-100
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to the improvement of general hospital outpatients waiting time using Theory Of Constraints(TOC) methodology and to the development of a Reception Desk in general hospital. This study is to provide decision-making guidelines for hospital managers and to provide feedback for the efficiency of job process. The target people of the study are outpatients and Cashiers on Chungnam national university hospital in Daejeon. The methods of study are summarized as follows. First, The team managers from a Reception Desk group were appointed. This team managers have the adjustment authority to the Outpatients schedule of doctor and Cashier members. Second, The consolidation of the general Reception desk and special inspection the Reception Desk. A movement line and waiting time of patients were simple and fast to accept. As a result of study, it shows that the TOC is the method for a job process and waiting time improvement, patients' satisfaction increase and we need an objective measurement indexes in the medical treatment industry.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.219-228
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• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the degree of delay in waiting time, and the relationships of waiting time, patient satisfaction, and revisiting intention of outpatient in general hospitals. Methods: The data were collected from June 22 to July 4, 2009. A total of 536 outpatients who visited 21 clinics of a general hospital were subjected to evaluate the waiting time. The survey tools used were the Korea Health Industry Development Institutes (2008) tool for patient satisfaction and Reichheld & Sasser (1990) for revisiting intention. The data were analyzed by SAS version 9.1, descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation coefficient. Results: The mean patient's waiting time was $28.3{\pm}30.7\;min$, the revealed mean score of patient's satisfaction was 2.92, and the revisiting intention showed was 4.56. The waiting time was negatively correlated with patient's satisfaction (r=-.10, p<.019). Patient's satisfaction was positively correlated with revisiting intention (r=-.51, p<.001). Conclusion: Waiting time management is an important factor of increasing patient's satisfaction and revisiting intention in general hospitals. It is mandatory that reservation management systems take into account the patient's characteristics of visiting outpatient department in order to shorten the real waiting time.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.144-152
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• 1996

Background : Because of introduction of nationwide health care system in 1989 and the improvement of socioeconomic status of population the number of outpatient visiting university hospital has good facilities and manpower has increased. So the waiting time for medical service at university hospital are lengthened. Particularly outpatients complain that waiting for prescribed drugs at pharmacy depart are long. Reducing waiting time at pharmacy depart door-to-door delivery system that the patients applying for door-to-door delivery receive prescribed drug at home without waiting at pharmacy depart were studied. The objective of this study is to analysis the opinion of outpatients for door-to-door delivery system, to study the appropriateness of adopting the system and to produce ideal model for the system. Method : Outpatients waiting drug at pharmacy depart were questioned about door-to-door delivery system. to find the factors affect utilizing the system the logistic regression was used. Result : 83.3% of the patients want to utilize the system without charging, and 72.9% of the patients want to utilized system with charging. 68.3% of patients with charging want to use this system because of long waiting time at pharmacy depart. 50% of patients who do not want to use door-to-door do not use this system because of incorrect delivery. The affecting factors to utilize the system were sex, waiting time, fee. Conclusion : The model for door to door delivery system. 1. door-to-door personnel reside in hospital and the patient want to utilize the system apply for the delivery with charging. 2. The applied drugs dispense at spare time. 3. Delivery company gathers drug at appointed time and delivers. 4. The delivery fee is 2,000-3,000 won. 5. To prevent from loss and changing the drug the name of patient on packet are printed and drug packet are sealed. 6. The company submit the confirm sheet which are written that the patient received drug correctly to hospital. 7. The delivery time of drug is reserved for the convenience of receiving.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.460-467
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• 2020

The medical service, accompanied by various disease and disease of modern people, must collect various information about patients through various tests, and demand continued to increase. As a result, interest in waiting time for medical services is rising, and various studies are underway to reduce waiting time. However, medical procedure is complex and diverse in the procedure of the services need to be conducted for each procedure. In this study, we are going to propose ways to improve the waiting time of the test procedures that are basically experienced by outpatients through the simulation experimental method. Based on the actual measurement data, the Arena Simulation program was used to implement the hospital's ophthalmic examination model and alternative model. Through this analysis, the waiting time of the examination procedure, the size of the queue, and density of the waiting room were analyzed.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.49-69
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• 2003

This study purported to evaluate the performance of the appointment system for outpatients in primary care dental clinic. The data of patients' time flow for 1,245 patients in Y Dental Clinic were collected for one month in 2002 and then analyzed. Specifically, the time periods of treatment and patients' waiting as well as rates of appointment and it's failure are estimated. The accuracy of expected treatment time period was also evaluated. The results showed that 72% of patients visited the clinic with appointments, and only 56% kept their appointments. The patient's waiting time period turned out to be 11 minutes in Y clinic. The expected treatment time period is turned out to be very important because they influence significantly on patient's waiting time period. Practically, the expected treatment time period should be overestimated about 9 minutes in general, and the characteristics of dentist, each patient's diagnosis and age need to be especially considered. Hospitals and clinics also need to make the systematic and detailed critical pathways for a variety of patient cases by analyzing the patients' treatment pattern. With the improved appointment systems, healthcare institutions will approach the goal of effective and efficient management of the institution and also satisfy their customers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.21 no.48
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• pp.223-232
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• 1998

In order to improve the hospital service quality, some hospitals try to reduce the outpatients' waiting time in the hospital. One of the dissatisfied service items at the hospital is the long waiting time to take the prescribed medicine. In most cases, the smaller the number of pharmacists, the longer could be the waiting time. The suggestion of criteria for optimal allocation of appropriate number of pharmacists must be very important to manage the hospital pharmacy. In this paper, we suggest the method to figure out appropriate number of pharmacists through the real situation study at the Sampling Medical Center Pharmacy. We present the simulation study results using the simulation package ARENA and the analysis of statistical distribution of the arriving prescriptions. The result of this research could be applied to the other service business to figure out the optimal allocation of available human resources and to do the job analysis for better service quality.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.449-458
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• 2005

There have been rapid changes in the pharmaceutical environment after the separation of Dispensing and Prescribing practice. In the early stage of this system, outpatients had few options to choose their pharmacies due to various obstacles. Under these circumstances, this study on the defection tendency of long-term care patients was performed through the analysis of outpatients who quit visiting a pharmacy nearby general hospital. PowerBuilder ver 9.0 program was used to extract significant data, and SPSS package was employed for statistic analysis. 3,308 outpatients who visited a pharmacy nearby hospital for a month (in January, 2004) were studied. Patients' sex, age and location of residence, the class of medical insurance, the characteristic type of medication (powder, split form, medication for external use/injection), waiting time, disease (department) were considered as variable factors. It turned out that the patient revisit ratio was 80.8$\%$ and the patient defection ratio was 32.4$\%$. As was expected, those factors mentioned above influenced on the revisit and defection ratio considerably. In terms of patient factors, it proved that there was no relationship among sex, location of residence, the class of medical insurance and revisit (defection) ratio. Only age factor influenced the ratio; the older, the higher revisit ratio and the less defection ratio. In respect of dispensing factors, there were obvious relationships among the factors and the ratio: bill (money they had to pay individually), waiting time, number of medications, splitting of tablets, unit price of drug and revisit (defection) ratio showed significant relationship. The result of this study revealed an aspect of outpatients' behavior and it could be used as a reference for better patient service and customer relationship management.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• no.9
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• pp.18-23
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• 1996

Among the building types in which behavioral issues play, the largest role are institutional environments. Such setting share a number of important characteristics ; they serve specific population (e.g. the ill, the elderly , '||'&'||' inmates) : they are directed toward specific social behavioral objectives(e.g medical care, education , '||'&'||' rehabilitation); and they are "Total institution" in which residents spend all of there time. The basic concepts and theories of environment-behavior studies are of direct relevance in understanding such social institutions. In this study, I have examined the relationships between waiting and the specific conditions of the hospital experience. More specifically, this is a study of visitors (outpatient) within the context of the hospital , and the physical setting designated for their use in the outpatient waiting room. Environment behavior studies, with its commitment to individual behavior and the physical environment might well be a particularly way by which a study of waiting rooms can demonstrate the power of this approach and its integrative among disciplines.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.57-64
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• 2012

The waiting time of patients is an important factor related with service quality of a hospital system. An appointment system of patients is not popular, in special, in a private hospital. An appointment system is expected to diversify patients in time and to reduce patient's waiting time. Three appointment rules are suggested and analyzed to compare the waiting time of appointment and walk-in patients using simulation analysis. The results of two way ANOVA show that the time slot of 30 minutes for allocating appointment patients is better than the time slot of 60 minites in view of patient's waiting time. The results of the appointment level 1 also show that the constant pattern rule and the zigzag pattern rule give shorter waiting time for walk-in patient and for appointment patient, respectively.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.97-102
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• 1993

Hospital pharmacy services are divided into dispensing affairs for inpatients and outpatients, pharmaceutical service, stock control, intravenous admixture service, drug information service, pharmacokinetic consultation service, education and research work, etc. But among those affairs, dispensing affair for outpatient is perceived as the most important work in Korea, because it is linked directly with hospital service for patients. Therefore, total computer system for dispensing area was adopted from opening point of hospital in 1989 in Asan Medical Center. Utilization of computer system for outpatient dispensing area is as follows; 1) Order communication system of prescription by Total Hospital Information System, 2) Automatic print-out system of direction for use by sticker connected with on-line net work, 3) Use of automatic tablet counting and packaging machines connected with on-line net work. Those computer system resulted in curtailment of pharmacy manpower and shortening of waiting-time for outpatient.