CLIENT:
Hunterdon Medical Center CASE STUDY
Flemington, NJ
Integral resource utilization study executed for family practice wishing to eliminate their waiting room. Most practices are satisfied minimizing patient waiting before a scheduled appointment, but Hunterdon Medical Center hoped to eliminate their waiting room completely. While developing a workflow that focused on patients’ forward progress through the system, resource allocation and utilization became the catalysts of success.
CHALLENGE
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Providers were unsure why patient waiting
Array’s work began with a current state mapping and visioning session to determine
times were so high in their practice and
how the staff at the Hunterdon Medical Center work, and how they hoped to operate
desired to make improvements by altering
in the future. After these exercises, we collected data for two weeks, giving the team
flow and adjusting resource allocations to
an idea of where bottlenecks occurred in the system.
match their daily appointment schedule.
Providers expected resident appointments lasted longer due to the teaching involved, causing increased waiting times. However, data showed that attending physicians’ appointments actually delayed appointments more often. Root cause
SOLUTION
analysis revealed that when attending physicians stepped out of the room to retrieve
Resource Utilization
added time to their patient’s appointment.
Array designed a new process based
A multi-disciplinary team developed a new patient flow that focused on patient
on current state mapping and data
movement through the system. In the ideal state, patients arrive and check-in before
collection, which revealed unexpected
a nurse takes them for a vitals assessment. Then, they move to an exam room, where
provider appointment durations. Using a
they might receive immunizations before their physician comes in. As the team
simulation model, we were able to show
designed the new process and put the transformation plan in place, we encouraged
the team which resources need to be in
the staff to focus on ensuring all necessary resources were available for all staff, with
place to eliminate patient waiting before a
the intention of eliminating the need for physicians to leave the exam room.
scheduled appointment.
Array developed a simulation model to help determine how many exam rooms,
a patient’s paperwork for, they were called on for other small tasks that ultimately
assessment spaces and check-in positions were necessary to sustain the new process with minimal patient waiting time. Staff provided feedback throughout the model creation, quickly recognizing it as a credible representation of their system. This allowed them to use the model as a decision-making tool to quantify the number of resources needed to support their new process.
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
2
Proposed Check-in Kiosks
12
Resource Quantity Combinations Tested
10%
Target Volume Increase