Gestão de filas de espera nas consultas externas

: o caso de um hospital privado português

Abstract

The analysis of the private and public healthcare sector is a hot topic under deep social discussion, both from an economical and a social perspective. As a result, there is an increase in the research for new methods that enable improvements in its performance, assuring a service that fully meets the current and future requirements. Often target of criticism, the long waiting lines and times in Portuguese hospitals requires a deep analysis. For this purpose, this paper focused on patients’ average waiting time in a private Portuguese hospital in September 2014. The observation in this period identified that the waiting time was above ideal and consequently four possible solutions for system improvement were tested. Finally, one proved to reduce consistently the waiting times. It was concluded that, although it is not possible to completely remove waiting times in the tested private hospital, it is very much possible to strongly reduce it, providing in this way a better service to the consumers.

Date of Award	2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Jorge Julião (Supervisor), Luis Rebelo (Co-Supervisor) & João Pedro Marques (Co-Supervisor)