Developing a monitoring guidelines for deteriorating symptoms while waiting for the examination of patients who come to the outpatient department of Phon Hospital.

Abstract

     This objective of this research was to develop a protocol for monitoring patient deterioration while waiting for medical examination and to reduce the incidence of patient deterioration during the waiting period. Additionally, the study aimed to assess the outcomes of the protocol development for monitoring patient deterioration in the OPD at Phon Hospital, Khon Kaen Province. This research employed an action research design, collecting pre-intervention samples from 30 participants and post-intervention samples from 30 participants.

     The results revealed that implementing the protocol for monitoring patient deterioration during the waiting period significantly reduced the average waiting time compared to before the development (p < 0.001). Furthermore, the average SOSP scores significantly decreased (p = 0.03). In addition, compliance with the developed protocol for monitoring patient deterioration during the waiting period was achieved by 70.89% before the protocol development and 95.56% after the development. When analyzing specific choice, most were achieved at a 100% compliance rate. The overall satisfaction level with the protocol was rated as high (mean = 4.30, S.D. = 0.57). The highest satisfaction was with the department's policy on using the protocol (mean = 4.47, S.D. = 0.64), while the lowest satisfaction was with the feasibility of the protocol's continuous monitoring component (mean = 4.07, S.D. = 0.59).