Guidelines for hospital treatment have been set in an effort to shorten waiting times. Tin Tuc (News) spoke with Nguyen Trong Khoa from the Ministry of Health’s Medical Service Administration.
The public has paid much attention to the new health check-ups and treatment procedures issued by the ministry. Could you give us some details about the procedure?
The ministry hopes that by 2015, health examination and treatment processes take only about two to four hours. Accordingly, it is expected to take two hours for general clinic examination and about three to four for clinic examinations. Image diagnoses or functional tests should take one to three hours.
The process will not be applied to all hospitals across the nation right now because each hospital has characteristics that need to be studied first.
What factors did the ministry take into consideration to make the examination and treatment process last from two to four hours?
They were based on results of a ministry survey at some hospitals. In addition, the Government’s plan to address hospital overload also aims to reduce waiting time and the overcrowding of patients at examination departments which have very high rate of bed use.
According to the plan, by 2015, doctors will receive no more than 50 patients during an eight-hour working day and 35 patients per eight-hour working day by 2020.
To achieve the targets, hospitals are required to evaluate their examination and treatment process to find out at which stages patients have to wait. From then, they will take measure to address that problem.
For example, if it takes much time for patients to get tickets for check-up, the hospitals need to open more welcome desks. If there’s a lack of doctors for diagnosing patients, numbers should be increased.
Hospitals should set up rooms for collecting test results right in the examination ward. Even ultrasound, X-ray and endoscopic procedures should be done at that ward to save time. In addition, hospitals should accelerate the application of information technology.
In short, hospitals have to set up an uninterrupted process of examination and treatment, in which hospital’s directors play important roles. The targets will be hard to achieve without the determination of hospital leaders.
Some hospitals have many patients in the morning or at beginning of a week but few in the afternoon or end of week. This would require hospitals to work out reasonable plan to match with the reality.
Is there a possibility that hospitals will incur fee losses because some existing stages will be abolished?
Hospitals should put patients foremost. If they are successful in reforming their check-ups and treatment quality, the benefits will outweigh the losses. — VNS
Đăng ký: VietNam News
