The Effect of Time-to-Provider, Left-without-Treatment and Length-of-Stay on Patient Satisfaction in Training Hospitals' Emergency Department, Iran

Abstract

Background: It is necessary to consider into hospital emergency services' quantity and quality in different aspects such as time-to-provider, left-without-treatment and length-of-stay. The aimof this research was to identify the effect of these factors on patient satisfaction in training hospitals.

Methods: In this descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study, the sample size was calculated 768. The instrument included 54 questions and 8 sections. Three questions were in the field of following factors: 1) Time to provider was defined as the time from initial triage to initial provider evaluation. 2) Left-without-Treatment patients were defined as those who were initially triaged but were unable to be evaluated by a provider because they had left the ED. 3) Length-of-Stay was defined as time from initial triage to the time of final ED disposition, either discharge or admission. It was analyzed by descriptive statistics, simple logistic regression, multiple logistic regressions, simple linear regression and multiple linear regression.

Results: The time-to-provider lower than 15 minutes, LWOT and LOS lower than 6 hours were 92.8%, 3.9% and 90.3%, respectively. The mean of time-to-provider and the mean of LOS were 18.1 minutes and 202 minutes. Time-to-Provider affected satisfaction of admission, guardians, nursing care and managing proceedings (P<0.001). LOS affected satisfaction of admission, guardians and diagnosis proceedings (P<0.01). LWOT did not affect satisfaction and its domains (P>0.05).

Conclusion: Decreasing time-to-provider and LOS has the effect on patient satisfaction in some domains. Furthermore, left-without-treatment rate is not a good proxy of patient satisfaction.

Keywords: Time-to-Provider, Left-without-Treatment, Length-of-Stay, Satisfaction