The Tree of the Referral System at Kemang Medical Care

Abstract

Introduction - In the US, every day 1 up to 2 women die from complications of pregnancy, half of them actually can be saved if they get access to quality medical services. In other words, handing over the patient to a specialist will further improve the quality of diagnosis than pushing a doctor to overcome all the problems. Various hospitals have prepared an referral guide for their obgyn doctors. One of the hospitals, which already developed this system, is Kemang Medical Care (KMC). The hospital develops an Obgyn referral tree compiled based on the range of gestational ages. The following figure shows the obgyn referral tree at KMC. This study aims to look at the obgyn doctor's referral pattern at other clinics in the KMC.

Method - Researchers reviewed the medical records from the documents report for three months (May, June, and July 2015). A certain number of referrals to the clinic are recorded and analyzed descriptively. Samples were 20 patients in May and 33 patients respectively in June and July.

Result - We define the referral to related and non-related referrals. The number of referrals related to obgyn continued to increase from 24th May to 40 referrals in July. In June, all references were related to obgyn. Total referrals related obgyn in three months was 102 referrals. The average referrals to specialists were 21 referrals per month, while the lab got 43 referrals in three months. Referrals to the lab were at minimum in May and settle the highest number in June. Meanwhile, referrals admitted to specialist were at lowest number in June. If the data is divided further based on specialization, the biggest referral medical support given to the laboratory was 43 visits (50%). Most referrals to specialists were given to dental and lactation clinic, respectively 17 referrals (20%).

Discussion - The interesting finding from the results above is how a referral to psychiatric clinic increased slowly but steadily. During those three months, 9 patients were referred to medical rehabilitation. In May, there was not even a patient who was referred to Medical Rehab. This is due to the awareness of obgyn doctors at KMC that obgyn problems are associated with psychological problems as well. Percentage of 18% which was achieved in July was even close to the ideal state in which an estimated 20% of patients experiencing psychological obgyn problems.

Conclusion - Studies at the outpatient clinic KMC gave encouraging results in the implementation of the referral system in this hospital because of the ability to refer obgyn patients to the psychiatric clinic approaches ideal percentage. This means patients can be treated very well at KMC.

Keywords: Referral, outpatient, hospital