Affiliation:
1. School of Allied Health, Human Services and Sport La Trobe University Melbourne Australia
2. Eastern Health Allied Health Clinical Research Office Box Hill Australia
3. Department of Families, Fairness and Housing Government of Victoria Melbourne Australia
4. Department of Health Government of Victoria Melbourne Australia
Abstract
AbstractBackgroundWaiting lists for community‐based paediatric therapy services are common and lead to poorer health outcomes, anxiety and missed opportunities for treatment during crucial developmental stages. The Specific Timely Appointments for Triage (STAT) model has been shown to reduce waiting lists in a range of health settings.AimsTo determine whether providing training and support in the STAT model to champions within five community health centres using a remote ‘hub and spoke’ approach could reduce waiting time from referral to first appointment.MethodsRepresentatives from five community health centres providing paediatric therapy services (speech therapy, occupational therapy and other allied health services) participated in five online workshops over 6 months. They were guided sequentially through the steps of the STAT model: understanding supply and demand, reducing backlogs, preserving space for new patients based on demand and redesigning models of care to maintain flow. Waiting time was measured in three consecutive years (pre, during and post intervention) and compared using the Kruskal–Wallis test. Employee satisfaction and perception of the model were explored using surveys.ResultsData from 2564 children (mean age 3.2 years, 66% male) showed a 33% reduction in waiting time from the pre‐intervention (median 57 days) to the post‐intervention period (median 38 days, p < 0.01). The total number of children waiting was observed to reduce from 335 immediately prior to the intervention (mean per centre 67, SD 25.1) to 112 (mean 22, SD 13.6) after implementation (t[8] = 3.56, p < 0.01). There was no impact on employee satisfaction or other aspects of service delivery.ConclusionWaiting lists are a major challenge across the health system. STAT provides a practical, low‐cost, data‐driven approach to tackling waiting times. This study demonstrates its effectiveness in paediatric therapy services and provides evidence for a ‘hub and spoke’ approach to facilitate implementation that could be provided at scale.
Funder
Australian Government
State Government of Victoria
Subject
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health,Developmental and Educational Psychology,Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health
Reference39 articles.
1. Australia Bureau of Statistics. (2021).Find Census Data. Retrieved fromhttps://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data 6th February 2023
2. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2022).People with disability in Australia 2022. Australian Government. Retrieved from.https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/disability/people-with-disability-in-australia/
3. The Impact of Systems Redesign on Staff, Patient, and Financial Outcomes
4. “Lean” service: in defense of a production‐line approach
5. Measuring job satisfaction among healthcare staff in the United States: a confirmatory factor analysis of the Satisfaction of Employees in Health Care (SEHC) survey