Santos, M. V. M. (2015). Simplified referral system of patients consulting at the NKTI to other specialized hospitals (Unpublished master's thesis). Public Management Development Program, Development Academy of the Philippines.

Public Management Development Program Middle Managers Class Batch 5 Thesis (MMC)--Development Academy of the Philippines.

The problem of the overflow of patients, including an increasing number of overstaying patients, at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute Emergency Room (NKTI-ER) exceeding double or almost triple its 30-bed capacity, has been causing comfort and treatment efficiency issues among patients consulting at the NKTI-ER. Analysis of the records showed that approximately one-third of the service patients catered to be the NKTI do not belong to the population of patients with renal or organ transplant disease classification, the mandated disease focus of the NKTI as a tertiary specialty center. This scenario creates a problem in the achievement of the goals of the Institute, which are to provide the most relevant and responsive quality health services, and enhancing the accessibility and optimum utilization of services by the public. To address this problem, a root cause analysis was conducted that revealed the lack of clear policy in interagency referral, and its consequent inconsistent implementation as the true and controllable cause. Review of internal processes on referral as well as benchmarking of local and international referral system were studied to create clear and simplified guidelines on the interagency referral system of NKTI with other tertiary specialty centers under the Department of Health. Approval from the management of the participating specialty centers was obtained as well as support from all project participant, to implement the re-entry project for a one-week trial. The results revealed that during the one-week implementation period six patients were referred to other specialty centers while there were no service patients with non-specialty cases who were admitted to the NKTI ER. However, there was no remarkable difference observed between the number of overstaying patients before and during the implementation period. Given these results, the scholar recommends the continued implementation and evaluation of the simplified referral system, and the seeking after which of its standardization for sustained implementation among the network of tertiary specialty center under the Department of Health.