Comparison of Patients' Admissions to the Cardiology Outpatient Clinics Between the Appointment System and the Queue System.

Abstract

Objective: The appointment system has been developed and implemented to eliminate di���culties with queued admissions. To identify and eliminate admission gaps, this study examined the characteristics of patients who applied to the cardiology outpatient clinic via appointment and queue systems.

Methods: The study comprised 2135 cardiology outpatients. Patients were divided into 2 groups based on whether they used appointments (group 1) or the queue (group 2). Both groups' and non-cardiac diagnosed patients' demographic, clinical, and presentational variables were compared. Comparing patients' characteristics by appointment-to-visit time was also done.

Results: There were 1088 female participants (51%). Female gender (54.8%) and individuals aged ��� 18���64 (69.8%) years were signi���cantly higher in group 1. While the rate of ���rst admission (P = 0.003) patients was signi���cantly higher in group 1, the rate of patients followed up (P = 0.003) and disabled (P = 0.011) was signi���cantly higher in group 2. Patients' rate with non-cardiac complaints was 40.2% in group 1, but it was signi���cantly lower in group 2 at 22.2% than in group 1 (P = 0.001). Admissions to the emergency department within the last month were signi���cantly higher in group 2 than group 1 (P = 0.021), this rate was signi���cantly higher in favor of group 1 (P =.031) in patients with non-cardiac diagnoses. In addition, patients who requested a general examination and had no complaints were signi���cantly higher in group 1 than in group 2 (P = 0.003). Comparing the post-examination diagnoses, it was shown that group 2 (76.3%) had a higher rate of cardiac diagnoses than group 1 (51.5%). The presence of cardiac-related complaints (P = 0.009) and appointment-to-visit time ��� 15 days (P = 0.013) were found to be signi���cant independent predictors of admission to the emergency department. The rates of patients with cardiac-related complaints (40.8%) and patients under follow-up (63%) were higher in the group with a gap of ��� 15 days between appointment-to-visit time.

Conclusion: Prioritizing patients by complaints, clinical features, medical history, or cardiovascular risk factors can enhance appointment scheduling.