Attaya Chochay.. Exploring strategies to improve the flow of patients : a case study of the pediatrics outpatient department of a large public university hospital. Master's Degree(Industrial Engineering). Mahidol University. Mahidol University Library and Knowledge Center. : Mahidol University, 2013.
Exploring strategies to improve the flow of patients : a case study of the pediatrics outpatient department of a large public university hospital
Abstract:
This research studies the characteristics of outpatient flow and analyzes the service problems of the pediatric department at a large public university hospital. The results from observation show that the outpatients spend their time waiting for about 80.45 and 76.20 percent of the total time in the system in the morning and afternoon sessions, respectively. In particular, patients spend more than half an hour awaiting the service in the diagnosis process in both the morning and afternoon sessions. The very long waiting time leads to patient dissatisfaction. The research then modeled the patient flow and used discrete event simulation to analyze the effectiveness of three improvement strategies; i.e., increasing the number of physicians, staggering of physicians working hours, and improving the patient appointment system. The simulation results revealed that the staggering strategy is likely to be the better choice to improve the efficiency of the service system.
Mahidol University. Mahidol University Library and Knowledge Center