Application of business process management in the improvement of registration and follow-up processes in public hospitals in Uganda

Abstract

Registration of patients in the hospitals is the most critical procedure in service delivery to the patients and public. A patient cannot be checked, diagnosed and even treated without being registered. Patient registration is further important in hospital management and planning where the hospital has to know the statistics of patients so that they can budget for them. Follow-up of patients in public hospital is little or not done at because of lack of coordination and inadequate funds. Though some special patients like HIV/AIDS, cancer and other critical diseases are followed up. currently the registration process is having a challenge of repetition of patient registration where by one patient can be recorded in the hospital books more once because every time a patient visits the hospital even though he/she is not a new patient he/she is registered again. Application of Business Process Management in the improving of these processes will improve these processes and also help in the proper planning and budgeting of the public hospitals. We carried out current study of these processes using qualitative methods of data collection which included interviews, questionnaires, observation. The interviews were done in both Naguru and Kirrudu Hospitals on both the patients and hospital staff and administration. According to the results, we concluded that there is repetition of patient registration, delayed retrieval of patient records and also delays in the patient registration due to limited staff to register patients.