HMC evening clinics to be expanded to cut wait time

Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has plans to expand its evening clinic services, a senior official of the organisation has said.

"We opened the evening clinics last week at the Ambulatory Care Center ( ACC). And, as the second phase of the expansion, we have opened the services at the Bone and Joint Center. We have plans to expand the services at other centres and areas, too, and the decisions will be taken at the appropriate time,” said Nasser al-Naimi, deputy chief, Quality for Centre for Patient Experience and Staff Engagement, and director of Hamad Healthcare Quality Institute, HMC.

Al-Naimi was speaking to the media on the occasion of the opening of evening clinics at the Bone and Joint Center of HMC Sunday."We will be expanding the clinics and this is only the beginning of the expansion of evening clinics. HE the Minister of Public Health has taken special interest in the improvement of the services for patients and it will be a continuous process in many areas and specialties,” he noted."During the first 90 days we expect to serve 10,000 people at ACC while the Bone and Joint Center evening clinics are expected to serve 13,000 during the same period with specialties in orthopaedics. Every week we plan to see 1,000 patients at this centre," he continued.Al-Naimi also said many specialties are in big demand, such as dentistry and physiotherapy, among others, and there are plans to expand the services gradually into all these areas.The official noted that the evening clinics are definitely having an impact in terms of reducing the waiting list of patients. "Serving 1,000 people a week at evening clinics here will have a great impact on cutting the waiting list of patients in these departments. Several people have been waiting for sometime - like four to six months - and it will greatly help reduce the waiting list. It is quite early to see the trend but after one to two months we will publish the real statistics,” he said.Al-Naimi pointed out that one concern is the number of no-shows. "One major concern is in the utilisation of the clinics as we saw at the ACC last week. We had about 20 to 22 no-shows in the clinics. Opening evening clinics is like providing premium services. Somebody not showing up affects everyone and spoils the opportunities of others. So, this week we have done overbooking by 20%. If you have an appointment and are unable to go, please inform the call centre and change or cancel the appointment, so that others can get the benefit," he appealed to patients.Meanwhile, Dr Ahmad Mehzar Alsaadi, orthopaedic specialist at the Bone and Joint Center, said the evening clinics will be operational from Sunday to Wednesday."We have clinics from Sunday to Wednesday. There are 22 clinics and four of them are specialising in trauma and fractures. Other 18 are sub-specialties in orthopaedics such as spine, paediatrics, oncology, knee and hips, among others. Depending on the number of people and the demand for more services, we will think of expanding the services to other days, too,” Dr Alsaadi added.