Problems and improvements in health care and health care systems are among the important issues in both our country and the world. Because in the center of human and human life takes place. For more than ten years, I have served as a patient relative from a hospital recently as a person who has been involved in many studies for both academic and application in health care quality and accreditation issues. Of course, although I am receiving services, I have had the opportunity to examine the processes by reexperiencing the patient’s perspective of the scene in terms of my professional field.
As someone who knows the work and efforts of the hospital’s former and new management staff, the quality workers in the hospitals, I have tried to understand how there are still difficulties in some processes.
I’ll try to summarize a simple experience from the patient and relatives window.
Hospitalization operations from the patient near window
Our patient was examined in the previous days and the process began when the doctor said to do your hospitalization in the following date and time. The meaning of this process in terms of patient and patient relatives was curiosity, anxiety and excitement for the operation to be done the next day from the previous night.
Struggle to start the hospitalization process
We were prepared in the hospital in the morning with our patient, as it is said to be at 8 a.m. in the hospital. We came in front of a door with public relations and the guidance of security personnel for the hospitalization process, but since the overtime has not begun, there was no one in that room. Other patients who were just waiting for hospitalization were waiting in and around the door.
We asked you if you would like to confirm, and everyone said they were in line, answering yes. I guess that’s another concern in terms of patients. This means that patients will have a desire to complete their operations in the hospital immediately, and in this process, if a system is not defined, the anxiety of losing your order (and your time). I’m sure you’ve testified that this situation is often between the patient and its relatives, and then with the hospital staff.
When it was 8 o’clock, the staff who worked in that room came and opened the door and said, “If you are waiting for a stay, the hospitalization process is not here, but at the end of the corridor.” There are two important points in this sentence. Every day, the staff is aware that someone is being manipulated and waiting for “accidental” hospitalization. Secondly, there is no precaution regarding this, and this is not the subject of that person. Well, whose subject? Let’s continue…
Of course, with the patients there, we have reached the redirected point at 8.05 hours, from the area we were waiting for half an hour earlier (because it will be re-queued). As expected, we have encountered a more dense crowd and order. The patients ‘ hospitalization files are ready with the doctor’s eyebrows, so we took the file on our behalf and we lined up to do the procedure. We were directed to the relevant outpatient clinic with a barcode… The instruction is as follows; Let’s get down to the bar and come back here and do your job. First we went to the outpatient clinic, but the doctor wasn’t here yet. We asked the staff there about the doctor’s name at the outpatient clinic, given another name, decided to call our own doctor on the other floor of the hospital, and we reached our doctor’s room.
Incorrect doctor referral and recurring transactions
Our doctor has led us to the process of hospitalization and we went to the staff on his own floor, saying that I can not see your calm. The staff there; The following said that the colleagues who have referred you to the wrong doctor have cancelled the place before they cancel without canceling the transaction. I went back to the section below and entered the same crowded complex line and cancelled the process and went back to the staff upstairs to process the referral to our doctor. He gave us our bar, and we went to the area where the operation would take place.
A simple hospitalization process, do you think it’s over? No…
What about our patient?
In this interesting hustle-and-bustle process, he continues to be anxious…
We’ve done an incomplete transaction!
We said our name in the field for the operation, let’s get him in, prep the patient, they said okay, and our patient came in with files. After a period of time, our patient (inside and out to get dressed again) came back and the staff next to the she was refilling, the patient used to register the drugs and the entrance process by pointing to the officers, you did not do the hospitalization process Said. We’re in line, we’ve given our file. and the staff there; You are missing documents in the file, you have to take this file (the first area we went in the morning) to the bank below and you need to get your entry (!) said.
At some point it is interesting in all these processes; All the missing, wrong transactions are being expressed as us. You have not done, did not bring, completed, etc…
The thrill of getting in that crowd again!
Anyway, we’re back to that complex and crowded line. In the meantime, it’s complicated and the crowd needs explaining. There are 2 computers working in the environment, but three rows of patients and relatives were made in each other. Because the middle computer has a malfunction in the process. The patients waiting in the middle are trying to get into the queues on their right or left, and a security guard trying to guide him gently to avoid problems. But I feel desperation in his testimony and tone.
After all, we are coming up and completing the necessary procedures for the hospitalization. We return to the above operating area, complete the entry procedures, and our patient gets in, processes are completed successfully, and our patient is in a healthy battalion.
In all processes, there are different signs of communication with patients and relatives, but to avoid further writing, let us point out our example here.
Being solution oriented
As I stated at the beginning of my post, I know closely the work and efforts of the hospital’s former and new management staff, quality workers in hospitals. So, despite all these efforts, how are some difficulties still occurring in some processes? With small touches in the process, many problems can be taken care of. We have to think about it and work a lot.
As a scapegoat, there is not much left in this age, where it is possible to seek a single responsible person, or to accuse someone, to make progress with a facilitated approach and solution-oriented approaches. Researchers and experts seeking solutions for many academics and applications in this area are doing studies and continuing. The intention of writing the manuscript is precisely this, to share an experience of the areas we need to work on and to make improvements.
If you would like to complete our article by highlighting different perspectives in terms of contributing to these works in particular.
Look at health services from different windows
It will be beneficial to evaluate these services with three different perspectives on the basis of human and health. The first is the general status of the demanding ones, the latter offering these services and finally the service itself.
Firstly, because the issue is health and life, the difficulties experienced in these services are vital and directly affect the patient who requested the service. In addition, even if every disease does not carry a vital risk, the physical and emotional status of the patient and the relatives of the patient who have a desire to regain their health is more sensitive than “other services that healthy people receive.” The disruptions experienced in the atmosphere of this sensitivity make the patient and patient relatives more susceptible. In the background of problems such as violence in health, patient dissatisfaction, this mood is an important factor. The theoretical components of the subject, such as patient expectations and perceptions, information asymmetry, are detailed in many studies.
The situation is slightly different when we go to the other side of the stage, i.e. the service-serving health personnel. The service servers that carry the responsibility of the emotional and physical sensitivities of the patient and patient relatives at any time, which are constantly in the condition of continuing with the diseases, also offer services in the same atmosphere. The most important difference between the patient and the patients is that they are responsible for managing their situation and solving problems. The difficulties experienced in this responsibility are among the many sub-factors such as employee dissatisfaction, motivation losses and stress.
Finally, the complexity of healthcare is not at a level that alone can be analyzed or managed by patients, relatives or healthcare personnel. In this complex structure, the health service presentation, which will result in the satisfaction of effective, efficient and service areas, can only be a product of systematic efforts.
This problem in the world, namely the provision of qualified health service with common sense, is provided in many different vehicles. Guiding elements such as different quality management systems and tools, standardification and accreditation bring solutions to the problems we address above in terms of patient and patient relatives, healthcare personnel and hospital managers. Implementing these solutions requires constant work. Because quality is a never-ending journey.
I can offer a holistic perspective on this issue and recommend my multi-dimensional quality work in healthcare services that I have previously published in terms of in-depth studies.
Waiting for your comments and suggestions,
Stay lovingly
Ibrahim