Home Visit and Community Health Services: Experience of Armed Forces Hospital – Southern Region, Saudi Arabia
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- Category: Vol. 78, September 2010
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Home Visit and Community Health Services: Experience of Armed Forces Hospital – Southern Region, Saudi Arabia,IBRAHIM S. AL-ARFAJ
Abstract
Objectives: To describe the current state of the Community Health Service (CHS), the effect of service on admission and emergency visit rates and the satisfaction among service patients and providers.
Methods: This is an analytic study which was conducted in Khamis Mushate Military Hospital during 2008.
Results: The total number of patients in CHS program by the end of 2008 was 273 patients. This number increased by 7.7% monthly, the average age of patients was 72.5±19.3 years. The mean duration of care in CHS program was 73.6±36.5 weeks. The total number of visits in 2008 was 3352 visits. Hypertension was the most prevalent health problem among CHS patients (54.9%). The rate of yearly admissions was significantly reduced for patients in CHS program; from 1.51 to 0.83 (p<0.05). However, the reduction in rate of ER visit was not statistically significant. More than 90% of patients reported very good to excellent satisfaction with the service and the team. Long stay patients occupied almost 13.9% of the hospital operation capability in 2008, with estimated cost of 15 million SR.
Conclusions: There is an estimated 4 million USD waste of resources on long stay patients. CHS program infrastructure and services need to be upgraded to convoy with progressive increment in patients’ number. The cooperation of patients and their families with the service staff and compliance to appointments, advice and treatment is moderate. Most patients are chronic diseases patients and in geriatric age group. This service reduces the admissions rates significantly but not the ER visits frequency. It also increases clients’ overall satisfac-tion, although, most of clients are not aware with service true objectives. Job satisfaction is excellent, except for workload and work environment.