1.0 INTRODUCTION
Physicians on-call schedule are made to ensure adequate medical staff availability because patients needs are not limited to traditional business hours.
Two different times are considered here to meet patients attentiveness.
- Normal or traditional business hours, that is Monday to Fridays
- Weekends; that is Saturdays and Sundays
Normal days are the normal time civil servants are on duty but because of not to leave patients unattended, attentions brought their schedule on a weekend that is why they have weekend calls.
Time is not considered while scheduling in the normal hours because each physician is expected to work for full day in UNTH Enugu especially the consultants.
In UNTH there are many different physicians departments some include
- Department of Medicine
- Pediatric
- Psychological Medicine
- Radiation Medicine
- Pharmacology
- Surgery etc
All the departments have the same method of calling on duty but are independent to one another. There are four different levels of physicians.
- Consultant
- Senior Registrar
- Registrar
- House Officer
Each department comprises of these four levels. Therefore, their manual method was studied and the computerized one will be developed. This study will be done for the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu to know how they schedule their call duty to the physicians. After the studying of the schedule then it will be designed, implement and computerized for efficiency to the physicians and the schedule.
1.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The call duty schedule for physicians in UNTH Enugu is still done manually despite their big organization. This has made their over – loading, difficult and also time waste and energy in posting the registrars and the house officers.
It is also obsolete, their institute schedule was designed manually since 1966 and a lot of changes has occurred since then which does not suite the last schedule, yet they still use it.
1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This study or research is to ensure adequate medical staff availability and to validate the time and level of seriousness given to the patients. That is to say whether normal / traditional time or weekends (i.e. Saturday and Sundays).
The primary aim of this research is also to design a software that will check for the punctuality and result gotten from patients record. Keeping for future use also these is the relief the burden and obstacles hindering the effectiveness of the physicians call duty scheduling system.
1.3 PURPOSE OF STUDY
This study tries to give an in-dept looking in the easiest and most effective way for the growth and development of call duty of physicians in every hospital. This research will also facilitate and harmonize their work or job in terms of attendance and punctuality.
The research is also designed to help physicians in particular to handle the flow and manipulation of information in the call duty function effectively.
1.4 SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY
The study is carried out with a view of producing computerized physician scheduling system for call duty. This study or research will ease the burden encountered during manual scheduling system for physicians in UNTH Enugu. The new system will also help to produce a comprehensive and authentic scheduling system. The research also stands to prove the capabilities of the use computer in the area of processing the medical sector.
1.5 SCOPE / DELIMITATION
The overall goal / target of this project is purely investigative and prescriptive. The University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital Enugu (UNTH) has been selected as the case study.
1.6 LIMITATIONS / CONSTRAINTS
During the research of this study I encountered series of difficulties especially in the pursuit of materials and other resources that helped in the successful and completion of this project work
1.7 ASSUMPTION OF THE STUDY
It is assumed that all the data and information collected for this project are correct.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Physician: Medical doctors that take care of the human health.
Consultants : Physicians with their PH.D degree certificate and also specialists on a particular unit.
Senior Registrars : Physicians with their master’s degree as their highest certificate and also specialists.
Registrars: Physicians with their first degree certificate and NYSC discharge certificate; they are not specialist.
House Officers: Physicians that just finished their University and are to work for one year before their youth service.
Call duty roaster: The output of the scheduler showing physicians with their levels and their places of work for that period
Endocrinology: Metabolism Disease.
Nephrology: Study and treatment of Kidney problem
Cardiology: Studying and treating of heavy problem.
Gastroentrology: Studying and treatment of stomach and intestine problem.
Therapeanities: Advance during reaction.
Respiratory: Studying and treatment of breathing.
Dermatology: Studying and treatment of Skin disease.
Firm: Means a unit in the department.
Patients: People undergoing treatment due to their illness.
Hatiss: Harmonized Tertiary Institution Salary Structure.
Data: Raw facts and material.
Database : The collection of relate files
File: The collection of related record.
Information:
Software: These are the set of instructions that control the hardware part of the computer.
Hardware: These are devices that work together to achieve a goal.
Record: These are collection of related filed.