Patients at the outpatient rheumatology clinic: do they really need to be there?

Time-driven activity-based costing in an outpatient clinic environment: Development, relevance and managerial impact

“…For healthcare operations, the practical capacity is expressed as the amount of time that employees can work, without idle time. Often practical capacity is estimated as a percentage, say 80% or 85%, of theoretical capacity [14][15][16][17][18]20]. By dividing the total cost by the practical capacity, the cost per time unit is calculated.…”

“…The breakthrough of TDABC lies in the time estimation [18]. The time-driven ABC procedure uses an estimate of the time required each time the activity is performed.…”

“…This lack of attention might be partly due to the absence of a legal framework to report and register all costs in an outpatient clinic environment [4]. Outpatient clinic services, however, are an important part of the healthcare services sector [18]. An increasing number of community-level outpatient clinics are satellites of larger medical centres or systems, and are thus part of a complex that can emphasize continuity of care.…”

“…An increasing number of community-level outpatient clinics are satellites of larger medical centres or systems, and are thus part of a complex that can emphasize continuity of care. This trend toward increased outpatient health care corresponds with a growing workload at many outpatient clinics [18]. From an empirical standpoint, the outpatient clinic therefore offers an attractive context for this study.…”

Patient initiated outpatient follow up in rheumatoid arthritis: six year randomised controlled trial

“…General practitioners believe that for such patients rapid specialist access in times of need is more important than routine hospital follow up,2 3 but hospital specialists may be reluctant to relinquish routine reviews 4. A study exploring the use of other professionals for routine reviews in asthma suggested that reviews had simply been moved into primary care,5 while a randomised controlled trial in rheumatoid arthritis showed other professionals could be effective 6…”