Waiting Lists in the Post-Review NHS

Mullen, Penelope

doi:10.1177/095148489400700206

Cited by 16 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Another positive contextual-level government factor identified in the literature was the involvement of stakeholders, including professional associations [22,25,26], partners such as national or provincial health ministries [22,24-27,54], patients, and other stakeholders in the health network [22,56]. Methods for involving stakeholders, which included soliciting them for information on data [37], advice on existing processes, ideas for improvements [25,26,32], and recommendations [24,26], as well as ensuring systems for reporting [37], were seen as helpful for WTMS implementation.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Toward systematic reviews to understand the determinants of wait time management success to help decision-makers and managers better manage wait times

et al. 2013

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BackgroundLong waits for core specialized services have consistently been identified as a key barrier to access. Governments and organizations at all levels have responded with strategies for better wait list management. While these initiatives are promising, insufficient attention has been paid to factors influencing the implementation and sustainability of wait time management strategies (WTMS) implemented at the organizational level.MethodsA systematic review was conducted using the main electronic databases, such as CINAHL, MEDLINE, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, to identify articles published between 1990 and 2011 on WTMS for scheduled care implemented at the organizational level or higher and on frameworks for analyzing factors influencing their success. Data was extracted on governance, culture, resources, and tools. We organized a workshop with Canadian healthcare policy-makers and managers to compare our initial findings with their experience.ResultsOur systematic review included 47 articles: 36 related to implementation and 11 to sustainability. From these, we identified a variety of WTMS initiated at the organizational level or higher, and within these, certain factors that were specific to either implementation or sustainability and others common to both. The main common factors influencing success at the contextual level were stakeholder engagement and strong funding, and at the organizational level, physician involvement, human resources capacity, and information management systems. Specific factors for successful implementation at the contextual level were consultation with front-line actors and common standards and guidelines, and at the organizational level, financial incentives and dedicated staffing. For sustainability, we found no new factors. The workshop participants identified the same major factors as found in the articles and added others, such as information sharing between physicians and managers.ConclusionsFactors related to implementation were studied more than those related to sustainability. However, this finding was useful in developing a tool to help managers at the local level monitor the implementation of WTMS and highlighted the need for more research on specific factors for sustainability and to assess the unintended consequences of introducing WTMS in healthcare organizations.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the contextual level, tools included instruments or procedures that affected more than one organization, such as the development and implementation of standards and guidelines [22-27,33-35,40,44,52,56]. Some procedures involved standardizing equipment across hospitals ( e.g .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward systematic reviews to understand the determinants of wait time management success to help decision-makers and managers better manage wait times

et al. 2013

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“…Demand for public hospital elective surgery usually exceeds the supply of beds and staff, so hospital administrators use waiting lists to manage backlogs and to contain costs. 5 Access is therefore prioritised according to need: 6 patients are added to a list in chronological order, but are moved up or down the queue depending on clinical urgency. Given that waiting lists are primarily created to support internal management and to assist surgeons in clinical decisions, care should be exercised when using them as indicators of performance.…”

Section: Health Performance Indicators and Waiting Listsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Waiting lists: waiting for the evidence!

Bradfield¹

2008

Aust. Health Review

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On 26 February 2008, Victorian State Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu described as a ?blow out? the increase in average elective surgery waiting times from 202 days in September 2007 to 235 days in February 2008. Likewise, the Australian Medical Association is concerned that 800 000 Australians will leave private health insurance now that the federal government has increased the income threshold for the Medicare levy. They warn of ?further pressure? on public hospital waiting lists. Public hospital waiting lists are frequently used for political point scoring and are portrayed by the media and politicians as indicators of health system performance. Alarmingly, governments often develop policies in response. This paper presents the current evidence to see whether waiting lists are valid indicators of health system performance and presents some advice for policymakers.

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“…The available literature on admission planning and waiting lists is rather extensive; see, e.g., Gemmel and van Dierdonck [4] for a recent state of the art on admission planning and Mullen [8] for a review on waiting lists and waiting list management. Many of the studies reported in [4] are concerned with improving the scheduling of admissions and resources.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All the studies reported regard the level of scheduling of admissions, and do not address the service concept behind the scheduling technique, which is the focus of our study. Mullen [8] gives a state of the art overview on waiting lists and waiting list management. Many of the studies reported deal with prioritisation, i.e., the order in which patients are selected from the waiting list.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%