Improving Patient Access Services Through Workload and Workflow Analysis

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

2017

MeSH Terms

Delivery of Health Care

Subject: LCSH

Lean manufacturing, Medical care, Workflow--Analysis, Workload

Disciplines

Industrial Engineering | Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Patients’ experience during their initial encounter with the provider’s services may adversely affect their satisfaction with subsequent care. Streamlined and standardized processes lead to efficient and effective operations, which ultimately result in higher quality of service to patients. This paper presents a case study using statistical tools and lean methods about improving business processes that contain point of access for the patient. The study was conducted in a neurosurgery department at a teaching hospital in New Haven. The neurosurgery department has five teams, which are spine, pediatric, neurovascular, oncology, and epilepsy; the spine team was selected for pilot implementation. Based on interviews and on site observations key business processes were identified. Then, factors that lead to process inefficiency such as loopbacks where a patient has to access the system more than once to receive the service requested or flaws in internal communication flow were studied through process mapping and historical call data analysis, and the results were used to determine staffing requirements to operate effectively, i.e. meet patient expectations. The implementation approach in the pilot study and the lessons learned during implementation provided basis for development of a model for implementation with the other five teams.

Comments

Copyright, American Society for Engineering Management, 2017

Paper appeared in the Proceedings of the International Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management; Huntsville, (2017).

Full-text access is available to the University of New Haven community.

Publisher Citation

Erdil, N. Ö., PhD., Cheng, W., & Singh, A. (2017). Improving Patient Access Services Through Workload And Workflow Analysis. Huntsville: American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM).

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