Figures released by the Department of Health (DOH) yesterday showed that Chang Gung Memorial Hospital’s Linkou Branch has once again topped the list of hospitals with the highest average number of patient visits each day.
The DOH recently began to make public on its official Web site information about each medical institution in the country in order to make the hospital quality evaluation system more transparent. The information includes statistics on fees charged for registration, self-paid drugs and medical treatments, the number of patients at the hospital and the level assigned to the hospital through a series of evaluations conducted by health officials.
The DOH found that the Linkou Branch of the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, with an average of 12,764 patient visits each day last year and 2,973 patients staying overnight each day, continued to take the lead in attracting patient visits. Chang Gung is followed by all branches of the Taipei City Hospital (12,393 people), Taipei Veterans General Hospital (10,893 people), National Taiwan University Hospital (10,546 people) and Taipei Mackay Memorial Hospital (9,818 people).
However, the DOH’s statistics also showed that Taipei Veterans General Hospital ranks No. 1 for having the highest percentage of hospital beds occupied (93 percent), followed by Taipei Mackay Memorial Hospital (90.2 percent), Chang Gung Memorial Hospital Linkou Branch (83.4 percent), Taipei City Hospital (78.3 percent) and National Taiwan University Hospital (76.5 percent).
In contrast to the high number of patients visiting top hospitals with medical center-status facilities, some small clinics in remote areas have less than one patient visit on average each day, DOH officials said.
Bureau of Medical Affairs Director Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) attributes this to the widespread, but false, belief that the larger a hospital is, the better the quality of its medical care.
“Some small hospitals also provide high-quality medical care, but they have more beds available [than large hospitals], so patients don’t have to wait a long time,” he said.
Shih advised patients who know they will have to stay overnight at a hospital to first check the DOH Web site for the rate of bed occupancy when determining which hospital to go to.
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