Rapid diagnoses at the breast center of Jeroen Bosch Hospital: a case study invoking queueing theory and discrete event simulation

Rapid diagnoses at the breast center of Jeroen Bosch Hospital: a case study invoking queueing theory and discrete event simulation

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Article ID: iaor20171366
Volume: 6
Issue: 1
Start Page Number: 77
End Page Number: 89
Publication Date: Mar 2017
Journal: Health Syst
Authors: , , , ,
Keywords: medicine, simulation, queues: theory, scheduling
Abstract:

When suspected tissue is discovered in a patient’s breast, swiftly available diagnostic test results are essential for medical and psychological reasons. The breast center of the Jeroen Bosch Hospital aims to comply with new Dutch standards to provide 90% of the patients an appointment within three working days, and to communicate the test results to 90% of the patients within a week. This case study reports on interventions based on a discrete time queueing model and discrete event simulation. The implemented interventions concern a new patient appointment schedule and an additional multi‐disciplinary meeting, which significantly improve in both the appointment and diagnostics delay. Additionally, we propose a promising new patient schedule to further reduce patient waiting times and staff overtime and provide guidelines for how to achieve implementation of Operations Research methods in practice.

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