This document outlines the key aspects of an outpatient department (OPD) in a hospital. It defines an OPD as the area of a hospital designed to treat outpatients without requiring overnight admission. The document describes the various services an OPD provides, including clinical examinations, diagnostic tests, minor procedures, and counseling. It also discusses OPD design considerations, such as patient flow, space requirements for examination rooms and ancillary facilities, and the roles and responsibilities of OPD administrators in ensuring quality of care.

1. DR.ANJALATCHI M.SC(N) MD(AM)MBA(HA)PH.D
SCHOOLAR

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
 Introduction
 Definition
 Reason
 Types of OPD services
 Description of OPD
 Services of OPD
 Focus of OPD services
 Importance of OPD
 Objective of OPD

3.  Function of OPD
 Preventive services of OPD
 OPD process
 Origin of OPD
 Organization of OPD
 Manpower Of OPD
 Design and planning of OPD
 Facilities of OPD
 Specific OPD
 problem of OPD
 Managerial function and issues
 Records use OPD
 Policy guidelines for OPD
 Quality of care
 Role and responsibilities of administrator
 Summary
 conclusion

4. INTRODUCTION
 An outpatient department or outpatient clinic is
the part of a hospital designed for the treatment
of outpatients, people with health problems who visit
the hospital for diagnosis or treatment, but do not at
this time require a bed or to be admitted for overnight
care. Modern outpatient departments offer a wide
range of treatment services, diagnostic tests and minor
surgical procedures.

5. DEFINITION OF OPD

6. DEFINITION

7. REASON FOR PREPARING OPD
SERVICES

8. Types of Outpatient Services
 Centralized Outpatient Services: All services are
provided in a compact area which includes all
diagnostic and therapeutic. Facilities being provided
in the same place.
 Decentralized Outpatient Services: Services are
provided in the respective departments.

10. DESCRIPTION

11.  Outpatient Department
 Day hospitals have served a variety of functions:
preventing admission to inpatient facilities, providing
relief to caregivers of people with dementia,
assessment, monitoring, and treatment of people with
depression, facilitating discharge from an inpatient
unit back to the community, and for observing the
person's behavior and mental state for a longer period
than is possible in the person's own home.

12. OPD SERVICES ARE

13. OPD SERVICES
 OPD offers a very wide variety of services such as
clinical examination, investigations, diagnosis,
dispensing, minor surgical procedure, interventional
procedures, counselling and rehabilitation services.
Efficient and effective functioning of OPD promotes
relief to patients, reduces burden on the indoor
services. On an average number of patients visiting
and utilizing out patients services is about 20 times
that of indoor admissions.

14. FOCUS OF HEALTH CARE

15. IMPORTANCE OF OPD SERVICES

16. OBJECTIVES OF OPD

17. FUNCTION OF OPD SERVICES

18. PREVENTIVE HEALTH ACTIVITES

20. SOURCES OF ORIGIN

22. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

23. MANPOWER UTILISE

24. OPD planning and designing

25. Planning
 Patient flow should move in one direction to
avoid undue back traffic.
 Sharing with the IPD, all Diagnostic facilities,
such as X-Ray & pathology laboratory.
 Should be amenable for expansion without
serious dislocation of work.

26. DESIGN PLANNING

27. Site & Physical Layout
 Out Patient Department should be situated on main road i.e. not
in by lanes to enable easy identification, fast entry and fast access
to the vehicles, whether car, taxi or ambulance.
 It is desirable to have OPD in a separate building or separate
wing of the hospital to prevent mixing up with indoor patients.
 There should be easy access to indoor area through
communicating corridor or overhead bridge to facilitate easy
transport of patient needing admission to wards.
 Support services like laboratory, radiology, social services,
medical record department and pharmacy should be situated
near OPD.
 Physical layout and plans must consider number of patients
coming from different areas and the direction of patient traffic
which should ordinarily move only in one direction.

28. LAY OUT PLAN

29. Space
 Rule of thumb is ½ sq. foot per 1 outpatient visit per year.
Space required varies with the factors mentioned below
 Anticipated Workflow
 Type of services provided i.e. basic, super specialty,
specialized investigative and therapeutic procedures
 Available staff
 Timing for the services
 Future expansion
 Hospital design

31. LOCATION

32. Main Requirements
 Reception & enquiry counter
 Registration counter
 Waiting hall
 Examination rooms
 Procedure room for
 Injection
 Minor procedures like incising, suture removal,
abscess etc.
 Observation / Recovery room
 Support services- laboratory, radiology etc.

33. Reception and Enquiry counter
 As this is the area of first contact of patient with the
hospital, location of OPD, identification and
functions are important. Staff members posted in this
area must be fully aware of all the areas, functions and
schedule of different services as well as they should be
able to communicate the same in simple &
sympathetic language.
 Wheelchairs & trolleys are also arranged near
reception in the specific space allotted for the bay.
This arrangement enables easy & fast transportation
of patients who have difficulty in ambulation or those
who are non ambulatory.

34. Registration Counter
 It is located in the vicinity of reception counter.
All the patients who come to hospital outpatient
services need to register themselves, obtain OPD
paper / card containing name & registration
number.
 In some hospitals, case records are stored in the
registration department & patients are handed
over a small card containing the registration
number. Every time the patient visits hospital the
paper is issued by the department.

36. Waiting Hall
 After obtaining case paper, patients need to wait
for clinical examination. Waiting area needs to
have drinking water facility, toilets and medical
store. Many hospitals have temple or meditation
room in the waiting hall.

37. PUBLIC AREA

38. Examination Rooms
 General purpose examination room
 For routine medical, surgical, dermatology etc. a cubic
room is required having floor area of 60*80 feet if
required. Each room requires space for the doctor’s
table, chair for patient, examination tray, wash basin,
X-Ray viewing box, curtains for visual privacy.
 In crowded outpatient departments, it is desirable to
have arbitrary division and separate examination area
for
 New patients – male female
 Old patients – male female
 Clinical room for students training

39. EQUIPMENT ARRANGEMENT

40. CLINICAL AREA

41. Special OPD services
 Gynecology: will require different type of
examination table, more privacy
 Ophthalmology: space & facilities for testing of
vision, other investigation and therapeutic procedures
on eyes
 Ear, nose, throat: separate light source, audiometry
etc.
 Dental department: special dental chair, drill etc.

43. Procedure rooms:
 For carrying out minor procedures like lumber puncture,
pleural or ascetic aspiration, catheterization, suturing etc.
Separate procedure room having adequate table is
necessary. It is desirable to earmark specific areas for the
procedure rooms.
 Room requiring aseptic conditions for surgical
procedures.
 Room requiring clean area & aseptic items. (suturing
& suture removal)
 Room for dressing wounds, plastering, injections.
 Room for carrying out potentially infective or
‘unclean’ procedures e.g. enema, bowel wash

44. ANCILLARY AREA

45. ANCILLARY FACILITIES

46. CONTINUED

47.  If it is not possible to have separate rooms / cubicles
for all these activities, one can have three categories
 Absolutely clean: restricted human traffic, change of
foot wear etc, use of sterile mask & gowns for
procedures like minor surgical procedures, biopsy.
 Relative clean: restricted traffic, change of foot ware,
use of sterile gown-mask not required. Procedures like
debridement of infected wounds, catheterization etc.
are carried out over here.
 Relatively unclean: procedures like enema, bowel
wash are carried out.

48. Observation / Recovery room
 After carrying out procedures like biopsy, drainage etc.
patient needs to be observed for 30 minutes to one
hour. When lumber puncture, infusion of intravenous
fluids, treatment for convulsing epilepsy patient or
status asthmatics or similar treatment has been carried
out, about one hour’s observation period is desirable.

49. AUXILLARY SERVICES

51. PHYSICAL FACILITIES

52. Support Services
 Pathology, radiological and other routine investigations
need to be available as near OPD area as possible. The
facilities could be
 Routine i.e. pathology / laboratory specimen
collection counter, routine X-Rays, sonography,
physiotherapy, social service department etc.
 Specialized- i.e. endoscopies,
electroencephalography, cardiac catheterization etc.
 Cash counter for collecting fees
 Stores : for keeping items required in OPD’s
 Arrangement for waste disposal and collecting soiled
linen.

58. PROBLEM AT OPD SERVICES

60. SPECIFIC PROBLEMS

61. CONTINUED

62. MANAGERIAL CONSIDERATIONS

70. QUALITY OF CARE

72. Summary
 Still now we discussed about OPD and its significances
of health care services like introduction, definition,
meaning , objective, function, preventive work, special
OPD care, design and planning of care, organization
pattern, managerial issues, policy guideliness, quality
of care and role of hospital administrators etc.

73. Conclusion
 To conclude, OPD is the first point of between patient &
hospital staff. In OPD, effective treatment can be provided
on ambulatory basis.
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74. References

75. Thank you ……………