Reference no: EM132191086

Currently patients are registered through an initial check-in process. At his or her turn, each patient is seen by a doctor and then exits the process, either with a prescription or with admission to the hospital. Currently, 60 people per hour arrive at the ER, 10% of who are admitted to the hospital. On average, 20 people are waiting to be registered (see Buffer 1) and 10 are registered and waiting to see a doctor (see Buffer 2). The registration process (stage two) takes, on average, 5 minutes per patient (this is the flow time for the step, note there is more than one workstation). Among patients who receive prescriptions, average time spent with a doctor is 5 minutes. Among those admitted to the hospital, average time with doctor is 30 minutes. Assume the process is stable, that is, average inflow rate equals average outflow rate (Note there are two sub-processes which include four separate stages).

a. Consider the overall process, what is the process flow rate? What are the flow rates for buffer 1, registration, and buffer 2? What are the flow rates for potential admits and simple prescription steps?

b. For all the five tasks/steps, find the inventory or flow time measures for them?

c. Now, using Little’s Law, please calculate the third measure for these 5 steps (either inventory or flow time).

d. On average, how many patients are registering? (This is the inventory measure for registration step) How many potential admit are being examined by doctors? How many simple prescription patients are being seen by doctors?

e. What is the total number of patients in the entire system?

f. How much time does a potential admit spend in the entire system? How long does a simple prescription patient spend in the system?

g. On average, regardless of the patient types, how long does a patient spend in the ER? Use two ways to find the answer (the long way and the short way).