Comparison of Patients’ Admissions to the Cardiology Outpatient Clinics Between the Appointment System and the Queue System

OBJECTIVE
The appointment system has been developed and implemented to eliminate difficulties with queued admissions. To identify and eliminate admission gaps, this study examined the characteristics of patients who applied to the cardiology outpatient clinic via appointment and queue systems.


METHODS
The study comprised 2135 cardiology outpatients. Patients were divided into 2 groups based on whether they used appointments (group 1) or the queue (group 2). Both groups’ and non-cardiac diagnosed patients’ demographic, clinical, and presentational variables were compared. Comparing patients’ characteristics by appointment-to-visit time was also done.


RESULTS
There were 1088 female participants (51%). Female gender (54.8%) and individuals aged ≥ 18–64 (69.8%) years were significantly higher in group 1. While the rate of first admission (P = 0.003) patients was significantly higher in group 1, the rate of patients followed up (P = 0.003) and disabled (P = 0.011) was significantly higher in group 2. Patients’ rate with non-cardiac complaints was 40.2% in group 1, but it was significantly lower in group 2 at 22.2% than in group 1 (P = 0.001). Admissions to the emergency department within the last month were significantly higher in group 2 than group 1 (P = 0.021), this rate was significantly higher in favor of group 1 (P =.031) in patients with non-cardiac diagnoses. In addition, patients who requested a general examination and had no complaints were significantly higher in group 1 than in group 2 (P = 0.003). Comparing the post-examination diagnoses, it was shown that group 2 (76.3%) had a higher rate of cardiac diagnoses than group 1 (51.5%). The presence of cardiac-related complaints (P = 0.009) and appointment-to-visit time ≥ 15 days (P = 0.013) were found to be significant independent predictors of admission to the emergency department. The rates of patients with cardiac-related complaints (40.8%) and patients under follow-up (63%) were higher in the group with a gap of ≥ 15 days between appointment-to-visit time.


CONCLUSION
Prioritizing patients by complaints, clinical features, medical history, or cardiovascular risk factors can enhance appointment scheduling.