Attendance and waiting time at the pediatric emergency department of the Coimbra University Hospital (H.P.U.) Angola

Life and Health Sciences

Abstract

The management of care and waiting queues in public health services is very complex because these are social services most requested by the population. Waiting queues have a negative influence on patients' perception of the quality of care and service provided, and can be the cause of worsening illnesses and death. The general objetive of this exploratory study is to improve the quality of care in public service systems, reducing the waiting time in queues at the pediatric emergency room of the provincial hospital in Uíge. The specific objective is to determine decision variables such as average waiting and service times, average number of people waiting in queues to be attended, in the health systems of the pediatric emergency department of the provincial hospital of Uíge in Angola, giving contribution to the effective reduction of waiting time in queues. With the proposed M/M/3 model and applying the quantitative method, the results obtained demonstrate that it is possible for the manager to identify decision variables and reduce the waiting time in queues, preventing and minimizing their negative impacts.