Abstract

National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Health Care Organizations (NABH) has set a standard of 180 minutes for the completion of the discharge process. Hence, maintaining an acceptable level of discharge time provides competitive edge to the organization. Hospital discharge process is one of the very lengthy procedures. Discharge time taken by hospitals is an important indicator of quality of care and patient satisfaction. The patient as well as his relatives is eager to resume their routine life immediately and any undue delay in the discharge process leads to patient dissatisfaction and takes a toll on image of the hospital, even after a successful and satisfactory treatment. The present study was undertaken to analyze the discharge procedure system in the institution. The main objectives of the study were to explore problems faced by patients and employees during the discharge procedure and to improve the quality of health care facility by reducing average discharge time. The design used for this was comparative design. The setting of the study was Sun Medical Research Centre, Thrissur. Convenient sampling was utilized to collect data from 69 subjects, who meet the inclusion criteria. The tool used for this study was discharge process time analyzing checklist. The study was conducted from 14/3/2022 to 18/3/2022. The collected data were analyzed on the tabular and graphical analysis. The findings of the study revealed that the total average time taken for unplanned discharge was 3:56 hr and the planned discharge was 4:10 hr. While comparing the insurance and non insurance patients, average discharge time was increased among non insurance patient’s 4:01 hr and 3:17 hr in insurance patients. In planned discharge, total average time delay was 4:10 hr. Average discharge time was increased among non insurance patient’s 4:38 hr and 3:41hr in insurance patients. The most average time delay was observed in discharge summary department (1.56 hr), insurance and bill settlement time (1.43 hr), (1.24 hr) pharmacy department. The study explored the problems faced by patients and employees during the discharge procedure. Findings of the study are useful for the HCO to improve the quality of the institution. The study results are helpful to the quality department to improve the quality, to identify the patient’s, employee’s problems andcreate an action plan to reduce the problems at the time of discharge. The action plan includes the all department included in discharge procedure.

• 1.   National accreditations board of Hospitals and health care providers (NABH), accreditation standard guidebook for hospitals, 4th edition Dec 2015, Access, Assessment and continuity of care (AAC) p. 28-31
• 2.   Shahnawaz Hamid, Farooq A Jan .Study of Hospital Discharge Process viz a Prescribed NABH Standards. International Journal of Contemporary Medical Research, August 2018, 5:8
• 3.   P Hendy et al. In depth analysis of delays to patient discharge- A metropolitan teaching hospital experiences, 2012;12:320-321.
• 4.   Michael Emes, Stella Smith, Suzanne Ward. Improving the patient discharge process. implementing actions derived from a soft systems methodology study, 2018 Oct 2.
• 5.   Sorita, Atsushi MD, MPH; The Ideal Hospital Discharge Summary: A Survey of U.S. Physicians; Journal of Patient Safety: October 2021 :17, 7: p e637-e644
• 6.   https://www.researchgate.net

Data Sharing Statement

Funding