Correlation between Incident and Stay Time in Ophthalmology Clinic

Abstract

 We accumulated the incident reports from the ophthalmology clinic for three years between May 1999 and April 2002. We analyzed the waiting time (the registration time to the appointment time), the length of stay (the registration to the end of the medical treatment), and the treatment time (the appointment time to the end) in the incident days using time stump in electric medical record. We had 20 incidents including 5 falls, 3 patient identification errors, 4 medication errors, and 3 errors at refraction. The averaged stay time was 44 minutes, whereas it was 10 minutes longer at the days of medication error and errors at refraction. This increase implied 23% increase of patient number. Stay time in days of other incidents was around 44 minutes. When stay time is long, incident may occur. We need systematic consideration for prevention of incidents at the busy day, e.g. interdivisional rearrangement of employees etc.