Page 16 - Mini Konvensyen Projek Kualiti Pergigian Negeri Kedah Tahun 2024

KATEGORI LEAN

HEALTHCARE

Reducing Patients’ Waiting Time in

KP UTC Alor Setar

BACKGROUND & PROBLEM STATEMENT :

Kedah UTC Dental Clinic which is located at Alor Setar is a primary dental care clinic operating on daily

basis (except public holidays). It operates on Sundays to Thursdays from 8.00am to 9.00pm whilst

operates on Fridays & Saturdays from 8.00am to 5.00pm. Furthermore, this clinic operates on walk-in

basis & provides basic dental treatment on the spot. This has lead to high patient flow as it favors most

of the patients due to way longer operating hours & availability. However, the overwhelming number of

patients have lead to waiting time up to 3 hours for oral health services. Consequently, this will increase

the dissatisfaction of the waiting patients & further lead to patient complaint. Therefore, the main

objective of this lean project is to reduce the waiting time for patients to receive the desired oral health

services.

VALUE STREAM MAPPING (VSM) :

Through the VSM study carried out, there were 28 work processes required from registration till patient

discharge. Value analysis has shown only 9 processes considered as ‘Value Added’, while 19 processes

are ‘Value Enabled’. Meanwhile, there will be 4 different pathways depending on patients requiring or

exempted from vital signs taking & payment for treatment. The longest process time required was 46

minutes while the longest waiting time was 209 minutes. The VSM did not show any ‘extra processing’

but the main contributors are believed to be ‘waiting’ and ‘defects’.

KAIZEN BURST & ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS :

By utilizing the ‘Fish Bone Diagram’, the identified main causes comprises of human error, lack of

manpower, sudden shortage of dental materials supply, faulty essential equipments, communication

barriers with patients, high patient flow & uncooperative paediatric patients.

COUNTERMEASURE & ACTION PLAN :

Kaizen was made to improve work efficiency by obtaining rental printer, training for staffs on handling of

GiRet System, Conduct CPD on the importance of Vital Signs for staffs at Vital Sign Counter, CPD on

third languages to improve communication with patients, Indentation of gifts/tokens for paediatric

patients as positive reinforcement and systematic monitoring of the dental materials.

SUSTAINABILITY PLAN :

Lean sustainability will be monitored periodically, close monitoring to ensure adherence to new SOPs

and sharing with other healthcare facilities.

PKPD Kota Setar

Dr Tan Phing Yueh
Dr Thuraya Binti Ibrahim
Dr Noor Aini Binti Mansor
Dr Tan Kim Ceng
Maziah Binti Ahmad Sharafudin
Nurashikin Binti Zuraihan