Accessibility of patients to the health system as well as the system’s rapid and effective response to patients’ needs constitute basic quality indices of health services. Major parameter of accessibility is the required waiting time for a new patient to enter the health system. We present the results of the use of an organized system for the management of new requests for psychiatric treatment, which is based on the triage and evaluation of priorities. While taking into consideration the administrative distribution of the health services, our system intervenes in the waiting time by evaluating the requests in terms of medical and moral criteria, via gradual prioritization. Principal aim is waiting time reduction as well as the optimal response of our service to the needs of our patients. This perspective study was based on the new requests. The 1839 (100%) requests for first psychiatric evaluation at the outpatient clinic of Eginition University Hospital in 2019 were studied in relation to different parameters, as well as the efficacy of the system in terms of waiting-time management. Mean age of the petitioners was 45.8 (± 16.8), with statistically significant rate of women over men (N=1062, 59.1%, p˂0.05). The initial communication with the petitioners and the evaluation of the requests rendered the correct management feasible via immediate referrals to special psychiatric services depending on the nature of the cases, as well as redirection to their local psychiatric services for 1057 (57,5%) of the requests, where needed. The remaining 595 (33,4%) requests, after their assortment into three categories of graded prioritization, were placed in outpatient psychiatric clinics after waiting time of 25 days, 50 days and 76 days, respectively. In conclusion, the results of the study show that the systematic management of psychiatric treatment requests, when scientifically and ethically substantiated, may provide mental health services with manifold benefits.Accessibility of patients to the health system as well as the system’s rapid and effective response to patients’ needs constitute basic quality indices of health services. Major parameter of accessibility is the required waiting time for a new patient to enter the health system. We present the results of the use of an organized system for the management of new requests for psychiatric treatment, which is based on the triage and evaluation of priorities. While taking into consideration the administrative distribution of the health services, our system intervenes in the waiting time by evaluating the requests in terms of medical and moral criteria, via gradual prioritization. Principal aim is waiting time reduction as well as the optimal response of our service to the needs of our patients. This perspective study was based on the new requests. The 1839 (100%) requests for first psychiatric evaluation at the outpatient clinic of Eginition University Hospital in 2019 were studied in relation to different parameters, as well as the efficacy of the system in terms of waiting-time management. Mean age of the petitioners was 45.8 (± 16.8), with statistically significant rate of women over men (N=1062, 59.1%, p˂0.05). The initial communication with the petitioners and the evaluation of the requests rendered the correct management feasible via immediate referrals to special psychiatric services depending on the nature of the cases, as well as redirection to their local psychiatric services for 1057 (57,5%) of the requests, where needed. The remaining 595 (33,4%) requests, after their assortment into three categories of graded prioritization, were placed in outpatient psychiatric clinics after waiting time of 25 days, 50 days and 76 days, respectively. In conclusion, the results of the study show that the systematic management of psychiatric treatment requests, when scientifically and ethically substantiated, may provide mental health services with manifold benefits.

KEYWORDS: mental health services, accessibility, responsiveness, waiting time, indices of quality in mental health services, sectorization of mental health services.

Dimitra Mpourazana, Ilias I. Vlachos, Panagiotis Aristotelidis, Aikaterini Koureta, Eleni Lempesi, Paraskevi Chondraki, Sisi Tsantila, Charalampos Papageorgiou, Maria Margariti

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