Study of the inpatient admission unit condition in the educational hospitals of Lorestan univercity of medical sciences in 2009

Admission department controls the input and output of the system in any healthcare organization; and using some management techniques such as process analysis plays an important role in identifying problems of this unit. The present research was done to study the inpatient admission unit condition in Khorramabad teaching hospitals affiliated to Lorestan university of medical sciences in 2009. This research is a descriptive cross-sectional study. Data were collected using researcher made check-lists based on inpatient admission department standards, and by observation and interview with process owners. The validity and reliability of the checklists were evaluated by content validity and test-retest respectively. The inpatient admission unit process analysis was also done in all the above-mentioned hospitals and data were analyzed by analysis limit, descriptive statistic indices, and SPSS software. The collected information was prepared as statistical tables. The inpatient admission unit process was similar in foresaid hospitals and only the cash desk, among the units involving in this process was locally centeralized. Mean of waiting time for inpatient admission was 19/10±20/50 minutes.The desirability degree of physical facilities, space, staff, task process approaches, policies, equipment and mechanized system of inpatient admission department in the foresaid hospitals with 35.5% score percentage was average, and the highest percentage correspondence with standard belonged to equipment condition (43.3%), while the lowest one (30%) related to physical facilities and space. The condition of the investigated admission departments was evaluated as average. To improve admission process, some solutions should be taken into consideration including: preparing and supplying special strategies of inpatient admission department, employing professional and interested staff, holding postgraduation courses, ideal allotting of resources and space, regular evaluation of the admission department function and implementing process improvement procedures.