Minimum number of servers needed for the laboratory

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Reference no: EM132307498

A medical center would like to determine if additional laboratory clerks are needed in its outpatient laboratory. Hours of operation are 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. All patients require registration in the hospital information system to allow for proper billing and test results entry.

The number of visits over the 26 months under study totaled 121,547. No appointments are made, and patients are assisted on a first-come, first-served basis. During that time period, the center was open for 576 days and inter-arrival times are exponentially distributed. Patient registration averages 5.2 minutes per patient regardless of the patient category.

Busy server costs and idle server costs are equivalent to the hourly salary of the laboratory clerk, $10.47, regardless of whether they are busy or idle. The cost generated per customer based on data that the average patient has 3.2 tests collected per visit with an average test reimbursement of $20.41 from the insurance payers. This totals $65.31 that would be lost if a customer left because the server was busy. The customer waiting cost was assigned a value of $20, as estimated by the business office.

Using the Excel queuing template, perform a queuing analysis for the registration process to determine the optimal server capacity.

a. What is the arrival rate per hour for patients? (Round your answer to 2 decimal places.)

b. What is the service rate per hour? (Round your answer to 2 decimal places.)

c. Looking at the utilization, what is the minimum number of servers needed for the laboratory?

Reference no: EM132307498

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