IJHR Open Access Abstract Background and Objectives: Visit length is a crucial aspect of patient-physician relationship that its inadequacy can negatively inluence the treatment eficiency. Studies on visit length and the factors inluencing it are limited in the developing countries. Thus, the objective of this study was to survey this variable at provincial level, and provide data on factors affecting it. Methods: A sample of 428 patients who referred to the outpatient clinics of the general hospitals of Qazvin Prov- ince (Northern Iran) was randomly selected and surveyed. Data were collected by a researcher-made checklist, and summarized using descriptive statistical methods. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Withney’s tests were used to examine the signiicance of the differences. The relationship between variables was explored by multivariate regression analysis. Findings: The average visit time was found to be 4.67 min, which is signiicantly lower than the minimum average of 15 min approved by the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Educations (MOHME). Pediatric physicians took signiicantly longer time to visit the patients, followed by general surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, internal physi- cians. The visit time of male patients (5.09 min) was signiicantly longer than that of females (4.5 min). Multivariate linear regression identiied negative relationship between visit length and patient visit frequency, experience of physician, and academic membership. Conclusions: The average visit time was found to be signiicantly shorter in Iran than the standard (20 min) and that in the developed countries. Our study results, hence, point strongly towards the need for upstream planning for improving the length of visit time in Iran by taking appropriate measures, including motivation and training. Keywords: Visit length, Patient, Physician, Patient satisfaction, Hospital, Treatment eficiency Background and Objectives Leading to progress and excellence in market and so- ciety, customer-focused is an important value for all organizations, especially in health system. Currently, appropriate, prompt and optimal treatment is one of the most important factors for patients regarding the care utilization [1, 2]. Prompt treatment in hospitals means to minimize the time to get services with emphasis on the appro- priate treatment. Furthermore, quality of health care is a main component of services delivery in health care organizations, and among the fundamental rights of patients. Regarding this, each patient has the right to benefit from the best facilities, the best treatment and the best physician [3]. Additionally, the length of visit is one of the core indicators in the process of health care delivery for assessing quality of care [4]. Length of visit is one of the crucial factors in cor- rect diagnosis and patient satisfaction [5]. Length of outpatient visits is defined as: “The time taken from entering to leaving the examination room” [6, 7]. In of the most developing countries due to lack of human resources and appropriate physicians monitoring sys- tem, visit time is low for patients. In some cases, mul - tiple patients had visited together and this is a right Provincial Level Survey Provides Evidence for Remarkably Short Outpatient Visit Length in Iran Edris Hasanpoor 1* , Mohammad Asghari JafarAbadi 2 , Mohammad Saadati 1 , Mobin Sokhanvar 1 , Elehe Haghghoshaei 1 , Ali Janati 1 1 Iranian Center for Excellence in Health Management, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran 2 Department of Statistics and Epide- miology, School of Health Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran *Corresponding author: Edris Hasanpoor, Iranian Center for Excel- lence in Health Management, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran, Tel: +98 937 5504406, Email: edihasanpoor@gmail.com International Journal of Hospital Research 2015, 4(2):77-82 www.ijhr.iums.ac.ir RESEARCH ARTICLE © 2015 Hasanpoor E et al.; licensee Iran University of Medical Sciences. This is an Open Access article distributed under a Cre- ative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which allows unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original work is cited properly.