Process Improvement / Operations
Reducing Patient Waiting Time by 30%
Rehoboth Specialist Hospital
Identified workflow inefficiencies and implemented process improvements that reduced patient waiting time by 30%.
30% reduction in patient waiting time
Before / After
Before
- Previous process step: Physical patient folders and handwritten nursing reports were manually carried between reception, triage, doctors' consulting rooms, and the pharmacy.
- Bottleneck identified: Doctors and pharmacists had to wait for physical files to arrive before seeing the patient or dispensing drugs, causing idle time and crowded waiting areas.
- Manual handoff: Hand-delivering paper lab results, investigation requests, and handwritten prescriptions across different hospital wings.
After
- Exact process change: Transitioned to the “MyHospitul” digital EMR system, enabling real-time patient status updates (e.g., “Vitals Taken,” “Seen Patient,” “Laboratory Result”) and instant cross-department visibility.
- Improved handoff: Automated, on-screen notifications for “Drugs Prescription Update” and “Doctor Review Update” alert the pharmacy and lab the moment a consultation concludes.
- Measurement point: Time tracked from initial patient check-in at reception to final drug dispensation at the pharmacy.
Challenge
Patients were waiting longer than necessary because of inefficiencies in the daily operational workflow.
The primary source of delay was the physical movement of information—specifically paper records, handwritten nursing reports, and manual prescription slips—which created friction at every operational handoff between triage, the consultation room, and the pharmacy.
Approach
Observed the workflow in practice, identified where waiting accumulated, and implemented practical process improvements by centralizing operations into a unified digital workspace.
Process
Digitized the patient journey using the MyHospitul Medical Consultation Workspace, allowing doctors to update medical records, request investigations, and manage appointments electronically in real time.
Integrated the Pharmaceutical Check Dashboard and Laboratory Dashboard so that prescriptions and X-ray/routine investigation requests appear instantly for the respective departments, eliminating the physical transit of paper slips and preventing out-of-stock prescription delays.
Execution
Worked with the teams involved so the changed process held up in daily operations.
Rolled out the system module by module, starting with the Medical Consultation Workspace and centralized Note Manager for nursing reports, followed by the Pharmacy and Laboratory integrations, providing hands-on support to ensure staff adapted to the real-time digital handoffs.
Outcome
Patient waiting time reduced by 30%.
Eliminated lost paper files, reduced manual data entry errors, and created a real-time, auditable trail of patient care from the front desk to the pharmacy.
Lessons
Small changes at the right constraint moved the outcome more than broad changes everywhere.
Digitizing the point of handoff between departments instantly collapsed the communication lag that was artificially inflating patient waiting times.
MyHospitul EMR
Screens from the live system
