الفهرس 
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Abstract
The utility of statistical process control (SPC) methods has received growing interest in the healthcare community to help improve clinical and administrative processes. With active involvement of practitioners, it should be possible to design and implement quality management programs within health care organizations that are acceptable to physicians, that reduce variation in clinical practice, and that bring local practice into closer conformation with national or best practice standards.
The present study aimed at the application of Statistical Process Control (SPC) to analyze the referrals by General Practitioners (GP) at Health Insurance Organization (HIO) clinics in Alexandria.
The study was conducted at 18 Health Insurance Organization (HIO) comprehensive clinics in Alexandria, distributed in the 6 districts of Alexandria HIO.
Data was collected as follows:
- All records of visits to GPs during the year 2002 were included in a
retrospective study, to obtain daily data about: Date of visits, total
number of visits, total number of referrals to specialists, to
laboratories and to hospitals, type of insurance and work shifts.
- .The available GPs of those who worked during the year 2002 were
included in a cross-sectional study, to obtain demographic and professional data including: age, sex, year, of graduation, duration of employment and qualification .In addition, information was obtained about the opinion of GPs about appropriate referral rates and reasons for unjustified referrals