Introduction
Management of hospitals is normally complicated and therefore most hospitals adopt departmentalization. Each department is run separately in coordination with other departments within the hospital. Facility management can effectively help the departments or the hospital as a whole manage the non-primary care activities in each department. It can help the hospital management concentrate on provision of health services while leaving the management of its facilities to experts.
Purpose
The aim of the study is to provide an analysis of the benefits of parking facility within an outpatient clinic department of a hospital. It provides the merits of the facility to the clinic, patient and other visitors of the department.
Thesis Statement
Building and maintaining parking facility at the outpatient clinic department will greatly improve access to services at the clinic. Visitors to the clinic will experience convenience and patients’ will find it easier to locate their destinations around the outpatient clinic department.
Overview of the outpatient clinic department
The outpatient clinic department identified offers various services which include diagnostics as well as neurology specialty services to patients. It also offers therapy social services. It provides treatment for headache, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, vascular and muscular diseases as well as diseases of Peripheral Nervous System.
It also offers neuroimmunology and neuroocology. Its diagnostic services include neurophysiology, cardiology, neuropsychology as well as neurosonology. In addition, it offers physiotherapy and social pedagogy. The clinic plays a very significant role as it also carries out research in neurology aimed at providing better services to patients and supporting education initiatives (Department of Neurology, University of Regensburg, 2011).
Need for parking facility
The outpatient clinic has various structures and facilities that require modification and redevelopment. Locating outpatient according to the patient demographic profile would make offering of services more convenient as well as easily accessible to clients (Aggarwal & Stafford, 1979). Marketing studies in the US have shown that patients are willing to travel long distances of up to five miles to obtain specialist tertiary care (Hayward, 2005).
Patients do not necessarily go to hospitals for primary care and that means that it is important to make the outpatient clinic facilities more appealing, modern and durable. Facility management would therefore help the outpatient clinic management concentrate on providing better primary services to patients. The facility management will be responsible for designing and developing parking for the department.
Facility management will help the hospital build and maintain a free of charge and clean parking. Such excellent parking services would help the clinic attract more clients requiring healthcare services including those coming from far distances.
The parking facility is to be built to create more space, reduce congestion and to provide safer environment for patients especially those waiting for ambulance services.
It will also provide parking as well as waiting services for the clinic’s ambulances and improve the entrance to the clinic. The parking facility will certainly attract additional revenue for the outpatient clinic department providing it with finances to develop other important facilities thus giving it the capacity to even provide better quality services (Patton, Pense, & Woodward, 1961).
Description of the parking facility
Parking for patients and other visitors of the clinic should be available and easy to access and besides, should be free of charge. The parking facility will be sufficient and built to take into account the daily average number and type of patients who visit the outpatient clinic considering that they normally take quite some time at the clinic waiting for services while other services such as investigative tests and many more could take longer time (Rucker & Slater,1983).
Facility management would help the outpatient clinic make efficient use of the available support space in the compound.
The parking will be developed close to the entrance of the clinic for the disabled and the older patients given their health status. It would also help in delivery of patients who require agent care. There will be well-designed entrance which is close or direct to the reception area of the clinic. In addition, adequate signage will be designed and constructed at the entrance or parking area so as to help patients to easily locate direction of buildings or facilities in the clinic.
The signage will also help display a welcoming image and a clear root from the parking area (Carr, 2011). This would greatly help avoid delays of in-patient arrival which could cause additional costs. The facility will be equipped with wheelchairs to assist the disabled and those are not able to walk to due illness.
Type of population served
The parking facility will serve all the visitors to the clinic no matter the gender, age or social class including the patients, the clinic staff, those who supplier the clinic with medicine and equipment, research partners of the clinic as well as other visitors who come to the clinic for various purposes.
It will serve patients from both near and far away distances. The parking facility will be more convenient to the disabled and the elderly people who can not be properly supported by their legs. It will also help serve patients who are too ill to walk or those with broken legs.
Conclusion
Facility management will help the outpatient clinic department develop and maintain parking facility aimed at improving accessibility to its services as well as ensuring satisfaction to all its visitors.
Reference List
Aggarwal, S. C, & Stafford, E. F. (1979). Managerial analysis and decision-making in outpatient health clinics. The Journal of the Operational Research, 30(10): 905-915. Pennsylvania: Operational Research Society.
Carr, R. F. (2011). Outpatient clinic. National Institute of Building Sciences. Web.
Department of Neurology, University of Regensburg. (2011). Clinic structure. Regensburg: University of Regensburg. Web.
Hayward, C. (2005). Healthcare facility planning: Thinking strategically. New York: Health Administration Press and the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Patton, R. E, Pense, C, & Woodward, L. (1961). The value of statistical reporting in the planning and revision of community mental programs. American journal of Orthopsychology, 31 (2): 292-319. New York: New York State Department of Mental Hygiene.
Rucker, N. G, & Slater, E. T. (1983). Outpatient clinic structure as a complication to psychoanalytically-oriented treatment. Clinical Social Work Journal, 11 (3): 280-289. Durham: Duke University.