Reducing Patient Waiting Time for Cataract Surgery

Plain-language summary

The purpose of this study is to examine how coordination between hospital departments affects patient flow between the free ward (B1), paid ward (C1) and the operating theatre (OT) for cataract surgeries at a tertiary eye care hospital. This will be an Interventional study using both quantitative and qualitative methods conducted at Tejas Eye Hospital. Patients aged 40-85 years, scheduled for cataract surgery during the study period will be included. Two trained investigators would observe the process and collect the data in structured format from ward admission to transfer into the operating theatre. Every participant would be observed from the ward on the day of his schedule surgery till his surgery is over in operation theatre. Demographic details and personal characteristics of every participant would be recorded in data collection form. In this pathway, timings, events, errors, deviations would be recorded at different spots between ward and operation theatre in first phase of study. Data would be collected from total 364 participants selected using stratified sampling technique. The data will be analyzed using MS excel and EpInfo. Summary statistics would be calculated for different variables and listing of various events and errors would be done. Using the above analysis various delays, communication gaps and different deviation would be identified. A dissemination meeting would be organized with all involved in above processes and findings would be shared in detail. Specific intervention would be decided for execution in the second phase of this study. In second phase, predetermined interventions from analysis of first phase would be implemented and similar data collection would be carried out to see the impact of interventions. Data collection would be done from the phase one sample size and comparison would be carried out for important variables like delays to establish the final outcome of the study. Similarly reduction in frequencies of errors and deviations would also be calculated.

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