Emergency Department Bottleneck Proposal Essay

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Emergency Department Bottleneck Proposal Middletown Hospital is a 200-bed, not-for-profit-general hospital that has an emergency department with 20 emergency beds. The emergency department handles on an average 100 patients per day. The hospital’s CEO has authorized the Six Sigma Team (SST) to address complaints received from patients seeking treatment between 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. The complaints are centered on waiting times and poor service. During this time the data indicates that approximately 70% of the department’s admissions occur (University of Phoenix, 2009, Course Syllabus). To address these complaints and improve performance of the emergency department the Six Sigma Team must understand process improvement proposals. …show more content…
The analysis should capture statistical data in time series format that will show sequential data recorded during different time periods throughout the day. Data should be included from time periods when the emergency room is successful in handling demand as well as occurrences of the bottleneck.
Creation of a control chart can also be useful in discovering areas of daily operations that are contributing to the current issue of meeting demand. Middletown Hospital is aware that they can not keep up with the demand placed upon each department with current needs. In knowing the limitations, data from the other 20 hours in which emergency department is in operation can be used to obtain values for a mean and average to be used to create a control limit.
Taking data from the entire day can be used to obtain a standard deviation value as well. Data and observations that show a large deviation from the mean will alert the staff to areas that need to be updated or streamlined. The control data that is being recorded should be able to define staff ratios, numbers of patients seen, time of day, day of the week, equipment or technology malfunctions, time of patient visit, reason, and duration. A control chart can help Middletown Hospital distinguish normal and abnormal processes within their patient delivery service.
Bottlenecks
Operation managers need to handle