Digitalisierung in der Patientenversorgung im Universitätsklinikum Schleswig-Holstein: Schwerpunkt: Patientenzufriedenheit in der Online-Terminplanung der Hochschulambulanz

The scientific work is embedded in the context of digitalization at the UKSH. The research question is: “How does appointment scheduling in the university outpatient clinic influence the satisfaction of patients and their relatives?”. As part of the work, baseline data on the influencing factors from appointment scheduling were determined, a basic questionnaire was developed and the digital data from the HIS relating to the outpatient stay was evaluated. These provide a valuable indication of how to improve the organization of waiting times for patients.
The developed questionnaire comprises 9 sections with 83 items and 1.119 questionnaires were evaluated. The questions were clustered into five groups; 1. patient satisfaction, 2. ways of scheduling, 3. waiting times, 4. relationship between appointment - waiting time - patient satisfaction and dependencies between patient satisfaction - personal characteristics.

One result is our own reliable specific items for assessing satisfaction with making appointments in an outpatient clinic with 6 satisfaction dimensions. The dimensions of “satisfaction with information & organization” and “satisfaction with personal contact” are suitable as predictors for “satisfaction with treatment” and “overall satisfaction with the outpatient clinic”. As a result, it should be noted that the quality of care should not only be measured by the quality of medical treatment, but must also meet the patient's needs for organization and information as well as personal contact.

The third result is an evaluation of 13.351 times to be analyzed in terms of process mining. Process mining is at the interface between process knowledge and data science. The following process times were calculated from the HIS: waiting time, patient waiting time, reserve waiting time, patient delay, treatment time and total length of stay. The measured delay was surprising at an average of 26 minutes for 42% of patients.
The study provides a differentiated picture of satisfaction with the appointment process with the outpatient clinic. The discussion was supplemented by the process times. It became clear that waiting times are of little importance. It is much more important to focus on the patient's delay.

As a result, it should be noted for the future of digitalization of appointment scheduling in outpatient clinics that the introduction of online appointment scheduling and the use of other digital channels will at best maintain patient satisfaction. The quality of care in the future should therefore focus more on the organizational and human needs of patients.