[Impact of automatized systems in a high resolution model of outpatients clinics]

To analyse the impact of computerised systems in Radiology and Laboratory Departments on the reduction in the waiting time of the patients attending to an Internal Medicine outpatient consultation organised in a high resolution model.

For one year, we studied the delay in diagnostic explorations (laboratory test, simple radiology, ultrasonic diagnostics and brain scanner) that were all applied for and performed in a single day. We compared the traditional organization (n = 312 explorations), in which the results were handed in by hospital auxiliary staff, to a computerised method (n = 457 explorations), which was implemented via our intranet.

The global delay decreased 10% in average, the differences being significant only for the variables "brain scanner" (12.7%) and "laboratory" (19%). The average reduction in the waiting time per patient was 11.7%, ranging from 7.8% (when only one exploration was performed) to 13.2% (when 2 explorations were carried out). The percentage of patients who needed to wait more than 3 hours to receive their results also diminished significantly.

The implementation of computerised systems reduced the waiting time to receive the results of complementary explorations. However, our results were not homogeneous for the different explorations.