Receptionists, appointment systems and continuity of care.
(9/25)
The influence of receptionists on continuity of care in four group practices was examined. Twenty two receptionists were observed making 543 appointments and afterwards were interviewed about their personal priority for continuity of care. One of the practices ran a personal list system. It was found that the personal list practice attracted more requests for a specific doctor and time which were then more difficult to satisfy. Most receptionists thought it was important that patients should see the same doctor but their influence seemed to be small compared with that of the doctor as expressed in practice policies. Marked variation in demand for individual doctors was seen in two of the practices without a personal list system. (+info)
An assessment of the value of video recordings of receptionists.
(10/25)
Video recordings of receptionists at work in general practice were found to be useful for self assessment by the receptionists and enabled the doctors to see areas for improvement in the organization of the reception area. (+info)
Combined computer generated discharge documents and surgical audit.
(11/25)
A computerised audit system using a commercially available database program and a word processing program was devised to produce discharge documents close to the time of discharge. The data were available for audit of the surgical unit's work. It was found that secretarial time was more efficiently used and general practitioners received more information about their patients earlier than before. (+info)
Outpatients: can we save time and reduce waiting lists?
(12/25)
The amount of time that one consultant urologist wasted on unnecessary administration while seeing outpatients was noted over six weeks. Searching for missing clinical data and the time spent on non-medical clerical tasks took up nearly half of the consultant's sessions. This seemed to be due to insufficient clerical and secretarial staff. Because low salaries are offered to such staff vast sums of money are being paid to agencies who are providing an appreciable number (40%) of the secretarial staff in our hospitals. Urgent action from the government is needed to remedy this and thus make substantial reductions in outpatient waiting lists nationally. It would greatly improve morale in this important sector of the health service without increasing total costs. (+info)
Practice receptionists: poorly trained and taken for granted?
(13/25)
Seventy receptionists from 20 general practices in Newcastle upon Tyne were interviewed using a questionnaire to determine their demographic and social characteristics, tasks performed and training experience. The majority of receptionists were mature married women working part-time; only 13% had received any formal training. Most receptionists had no career structure and only 9% had ever been given a written job description. Thirty-one per cent of receptionists did not feel appreciated by their general practitioners and more (49%) felt unappreciated by the general public. However, they believed their main function was to help patients. From the description of their work receptionists are clearly integral and essential members of the primary health care team.To achieve the development of primary care services it is likely that practices will need to employ more ancillary staff, and these staff will require more pre-service and in-service training. (+info)
Pain relief clinics under anaesthetic management in Scotland.
(14/25)
The rapid development of pain relief clinics throughout the United Kingdom has led to major differences in the range of treatments provided by the centres, and problems in their management and funding. To ascertain the present position of the service provided by anaesthetists in Scotland, a survey by questionnaire was carried out. A summary of these findings and the conclusions are detailed. (+info)
Comparison of manual data coding errors in two hospitals.
(15/25)
The routine manual encoding of pathological data, using the SNOP and SNOMED systems at two London teaching hospitals, was reviewed. The error rates in the two departments were compared and the causes analysed. The relative merits of SNOP and SNOMED were considered. Methods to optimise the efficiency of manual encoding are suggested and the importance of accuracy in coding is emphasised. (+info)
Repeat prescribing via the receptionist in a group practice.
(16/25)
As concern has been expressed about danger to patients, a survey about repeat prescribing via the receptionist was carried out in a group practice.About one quarter of the prescriptions in the study period were ;receptionist repeats' and these were compared with a group of repeat prescriptions obtained in the course of consultation. The receptionist repeat group contained a higher proportion of the over 65s, and relatively more men than women, though the consultation repeats and the group as a whole, were heavily biased towards women. Hypnotics and drugs to relax bronchial spasm were found more commonly among the ;receptionist repeats.'This group of patients tended to have been taking their medication for a significantly longer period than their consultation fellows, often for more than five years. Although categorised as ;receptionist repeats,' two thirds of these patients were seen by a doctor more often than six monthly. No direct evidence of any serious danger or disadvantage to the patients was found. (+info)