Article ID: | iaor20123724 |
Volume: | 15 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 108 |
End Page Number: | 120 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2012 |
Journal: | Health Care Management Science |
Authors: | Li Jingshan, Wang Junwen, Quan Shichuan, Hollis Amy |
Keywords: | markov processes, scheduling, simulation: applications |
In this paper, a Markov chain model is developed to model the work flow in a computed tomography (CT) imaging department at University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation. Using this model, we estimate the patient length of stay and investigate different configurations of radiology specialists for potential efficiency improvement to reduce flow time and cost. What‐if analysis is carried out to investigate the impact of various staffing levels and sensitivity study is used to identify the bottleneck operation, i.e., the most impeding one whose improvement can lead to the highest productivity increase.