Waiting time in Saudi ER drops by 34%

The Ministry of Health has reported that the waiting period at the emergency rooms in hospitals has decreased by 34 percent in 2017 compared to the previous years.

In the report published by Al-Watan newspaper, the ministry stated that the waiting time in emergency rooms used to be as high as 199 minutes but it has dropped to a maximum of 131 minutes last year.

The waiting time in outpatient clinics has decreased by 32 percent from 48 minutes to 32 minutes. The waiting time for patients in critical conditions has dropped by 44 percent from 16.5 minutes to 9.3 minutes.

The ministry attributed the improvement in waiting time to the opening of new clinics and health institutions. There were only 30 health centers with psychiatry clinics but the ministry opened more clinics to take the number of health centers offering psychiatry services to 312.

The ministry’s report also showed that the rate of emergency patients being admitted as residents has also decreased by 61 percent. The number of beds increased by 1,822 beds from 41,835 beds in 2016 and to 43,657 beds by the end of 2017.

The rate of visits to the first aid center by individuals has increased 14 percent from a rate of 2.36 visits per person to 2.69 visits per person.

The report also showed that the time the inpatient stay in public hospitals has decreased by 35 percent. Inpatients used to stay an average of 2.4 days, which has dropped to an average of 1.6 days.

The time spent on transferring patients from the emergency ward to the intensive care unit has decreased by 77 percent. The average time spent used to be 13 hours and 49 minutes and it has decreased to 3 hours and 14 minutes.

The number of isolation rooms in hospitals rose from 432 to 646 rooms. The number of home visits has also increased by 27 percent. There used to be 254,000 house visits, which increased to 333,000 house visits last year.

Vaccination against the seasonal flu has increased by 45 percent. The number of patients who used to take the vaccine was 2.2 million, which increased to 3.2 million last year.

The number of phone consultancies at the 937 call center has increased from 79,000 to 420,000. The rate of phone complaints received by the center has decreased by 50 percent and the satisfaction rate of patients has increased from 22 percent to 67 percent.