APPLICATION OF CONTROL CHARTS FOR MONITORING THE WAIT ING TIME IN A BASIC HEALTHCARE UNIT IN BRAZIL

Brazilian public healthcare service is highly demanded. However, the system has been through a restrained scenario, with a long waiting time to have a doctor's appointment and scans. This research aims to analyze the waiting time in the services of a Basic Healthcare Unit (BHU) in a small city in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, by using statistical control charts. The field research relays on Taguchi's loss function smaller-the-better, in other words, the shorter the waiting time for patients, better is the perception of quality. A direct observation was carried out in order to acquire the patients' waiting time for a medical appointment and to evaluate the quality of the service. The patient waiting time was monitored with Control Chart for Individual Measurements and Moving Range and then it was determined the capability of the service by using the Cpk index. It was concluded that the service is inefficient based on Process Capability Index (Cpk=-0.15), being the average waiting time for a doctor's appointment around 121.88 minutes (approximately 2 hours).