Survey reveals patients' main concern is wait times

Reducing wait times for outpatient and medical checks, better hospital environments as well as human-centered services are the main concerns of local patients, according to a survey released over the weekend.

Shanghai Medical Ethos Association teamed up with Fudan University to interview nearly 24,000 outpatients and 6,000 hospitalized patients in 110 public medical facilities to gain insights into local health services.

The survey, involving both online questionnaires and offline tables, studied people's comments on 27 items of four contents: hospital equipment and digital service, doctor's service, other staff service and, medical process and effects.

Patients expressed their satisfaction with the promotion of smart service, which offers convenient payment, digital invoice, DIY report printing, quick report checks and consultation and reservation, as well as renovation targeting the elderly.

The special version with bigger characters and simpler direction on hospitals WeChat account, volunteers' support in hospital and toilet and corridor renovation for the elderly were welcomed by local elderly people.

Though local hospitals have offered various reservation methods, there is gap between patients' satisfaction. The top issue patients want is to further shorten wait times.

About 43 percent of patients said their wait time in outpatient departments is less than one hour, and 71 percent said their waiting time is less than two hours. There has been no significant improvement than 2022.

The wait time for medical checks like CT, ultrasound, MRI and gastroenteroscopy is also the same as 2022.

"Further enhancing the quality and precision of outpatient reservations and perfecting medical flow to reduce unnecessary checks, improving equipment and arrangements can reduce patients' wait time," said Xue Di from Fudan University's School of Public Health, which lead the survey.

Arranging more volunteers, installing more chairs, offering more elderly people-friendly services, setting up breastfeeding rooms in outpatient departments and improving food for hospitalized patients are further suggestions.