Structured approach to improving wait times and overall customer service in an oncology outpatient phlebotomy department.

2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (31_suppl) ◽  
pp. 77-77
Author(s):  
Patrick M. Forde ◽  
Kitty Violette ◽  
Karen Maylor ◽  
Barbara Kasecamp ◽  
Beth Rushworth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Customer Service ◽  
Waiting Times ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Wait Times ◽  
Staff Satisfaction ◽  
Work Schedule ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Patient Satisfaction Scores ◽  
Structured Approach

77 Background: Demands on the Johns Hopkins phlebotomy service have increased exponentially over the past several years leading to increased patient (pt) waiting times and reduced patient and staff satisfaction. Methods: The goal of our project was to reduce waiting times for outpatient phlebotomy to <30 mins for 90% of pts by May 2013 using a multi-disciplinary lean sigma approach. The following interventions were implemented - Two weekly multidisciplinary lean sigma meetings; Move to set appointment times; Twice daily staff "huddles" to plan the work schedule; Ensure a minimum of 8 phlebotomists on duty daily; Expand training for clinical assistants (CAs) to access VADs; Introduce pager system for pts to reduce needless waiting; Introduce leadership positions among phlebotomy and CA staff to manage change. Results: Within 6 months of these concerted efforts wait times have reduced to <30 mins and patient satisfaction scores for >90% of pts are very good or excellent. Conclusions: Difficult problems such as increasing patient demand with constrained resources can be ameliorated with a multidisciplinary structured approach. The project as outlined may serve as a template for other oncology services dealing with the increasing demands of an aging population in a time of increasingly limited resources.

An experimental study of Web switching behavior

2003 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-93
Author(s):  
James Otto ◽  
Mohammad Najdawi ◽  
William Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Electronic Commerce ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Waiting Times ◽  
Switching Behavior ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Wait Times ◽  
Web Page ◽  
Extensive Growth ◽  
The Impact

With the extensive growth of the Internet and electronic commerce, the issue of how users behave when confronted with long download times is important. This paper investigates Web switching behavior. The paper describes experiments where users were subjected to artificially delayed Web page download times to study the impact of Web site wait times on switching behavior. Two hypotheses were tested. First, that longer wait times will result in increased switching behavior. The implication being that users become frustrated with long waiting times and choose to go elsewhere. Second, that users who switch will benefit, in terms of decreased download times, from their decision to switch.

scholarly journals Online Ratings of Primary Care Physicians: Comparison of Gender, Training, and Specialty

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 237437352110077
Author(s):  
Daliah Wachs ◽  
Victoria Lorah ◽  
Allison Boynton ◽  
Amanda Hertzler ◽  
Brandon Nichols ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Primary Care ◽  
Primary Care Physicians ◽  
Waiting Times ◽  
Wait Time ◽  
Primary Care Providers ◽  
Wait Times ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Female Physicians ◽  
Online Ratings ◽  
And Gender

The purpose of this study was to explore patient perceptions of primary care providers and their offices relative to their physician’s philosophy (medical degree [MD] vs doctorate in osteopathic medicine [DO]), specialty (internal medicine vs family medicine), US region, and gender (male vs female). Using the Healthgrades website, the average satisfaction rating for the physician, office parameters, and wait time were collected and analyzed for 1267 physicians. We found female doctors tended to have lower ratings in the Midwest, and staff friendliness of female physicians were rated lower in the northwest. In the northeast, male and female MDs were rated more highly than DOs. Wait times varied regionally, with northeast and northwest regions having the shortest wait times. Overall satisfaction was generally high for most physicians. Regional differences in perception of a physician based on gender or degree may have roots in local culture, including proximity to a DO school, comfort with female physicians, and expectations for waiting times.

Personalized Priority Policies in Call Centers Using Past Customer Interaction Information

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett Alan Hathaway ◽  
Seyed Morteza Emadi ◽  
Vinayak Deshpande
Keyword(s):  
Customer Service ◽  
Operations Management ◽  
Bayesian Learning ◽  
Structural Model ◽  
Call Centers ◽  
Waiting Times ◽  
Operational Performance ◽  
System Throughput ◽  
History Data ◽  
Individual Level

To increase revenue or improve customer service, companies are increasingly personalizing their product or service offerings based on their customers' history of interactions. In this paper, we show how call centers can improve customer service by implementing personalized priority policies. Under personalized priority policies, managers use customer contact history to predict individual-level caller abandonment and redialing behavior and prioritize them based on these predictions to improve operational performance. We provide a framework for how companies can use individual-level customer history data to capture the idiosyncratic preferences and beliefs that impact caller abandonment and redialing behavior and quantify the improvements to operational performance of these policies by applying our framework using caller history data from a real-world call center. We achieve this by formulating a structural model that uses a Bayesian learning framework to capture how callers’ past waiting times and abandonment/redialing decisions affect their current abandonment and redialing behavior and use our data to impute the callers’ underlying primitives such as their rewards for service, waiting costs, and redialing costs. These primitives allow us to simulate caller behavior under a variety of personalized priority policies and hence, collect relevant operational performance measures. We find that, relative to the first-come, first-served policy, our proposed personalized priority policies have the potential to decrease average waiting times by up to 29% or increase system throughput by reducing the percentage of service requests lost to abandonment by up to 6.3%. This paper was accepted by Vishaul Gaur, operations management.

Investigation of Scale Effects in Sailing Yacht Performance Prediction by Experimental Methods

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustafa Insel ◽  
Ziya Saydam
Keyword(s):  
Performance Prediction ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Scale Effects ◽  
Waiting Times ◽  
Wave Pattern ◽  
Experimental Investigations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Scale Models ◽  
Sailing Yacht ◽  
Testing Techniques

A substantial amount of research has been carried out in the past to enhance the testing techniques and to increase the accuracy associated with tank testing of sailing yachts. The majority of this work was associated with high budgeted campaigns; large models, long waiting times and high budgets became standard practice in the field. This led to lack of accessibility for low budgeted campaigns and for designers of ordinary sailing yachts to these tests. A research study has been initiated to investigate the scale effects associated with tank testing of sailing yachts. The intention has been to make best use of modern experimental and computational methods to understand the scale effects in conjunction with systematic tank tests. Both viscous and wave components were considered for investigation of scale effects in sailing yacht performance prediction. Four different scale models ranging from 1/4 to 1/10 of a TP52 yacht have been tested in the towing tank in upright and heeled condition while full, half and quarter scale computational analysis have been carried out with a RANS code. The wave pattern measurements were conducted for all upright and heeled cases with the use of three wave probes on each side. Variation of drag, side force, running attitude and wave pattern have been investigated. This paper focuses on the experimental investigations both in the upright and heeled conditions.

scholarly journals A Drive-through Simulation Tool for Mass Vaccination during COVID-19 Pandemic

Healthcare ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 469
Author(s):  
Ali Asgary ◽  
Mahdi M. Najafabadi ◽  
Richard Karsseboom ◽  
Jianhong Wu
Keyword(s):  
Waiting Times ◽  
Discrete Event ◽  
Mass Vaccination ◽  
Simulation Tool ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Public Health Agencies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Development Teams ◽  
Recovery Times ◽  
Effectiveness Assessment

Several research and development teams around the world are working towards COVID-19 vaccines. As vaccines are expected to be developed and produced, preparedness and planning for mass vaccination and immunization will become an important aspect of the pandemic management. Mass vaccination has been used by public health agencies in the past and is being proposed as a viable option for COVID-19 immunization. To be able to rapidly and safely immunize a large number of people against SARS-CoV-2, different mass vaccination options are available. Drive-through facilities have been successfully used in the past for immunization against other diseases and for testing during COVID-19. In this paper we introduce a drive-through vaccination simulation tool that can be used to enhance the planning, design, operation, and feasibility and effectiveness assessment of such facilities. The simulation tool is a hybrid model that integrates discrete event and agent-based modeling techniques. The simulation outputs visually and numerically show the average processing and waiting times and the number of cars and people that can be served (throughput values) under different numbers of staff, service lanes, screening, registration, immunization, and recovery times.

scholarly journals An Audit of Wait Times for Service Offered by the Gynaecology Oncology Unit at the University Hospital in Jamaica: Are We Meeting the Standards?

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 74s-74s
Author(s):  
Ian Bambury ◽  
Christopher Fletcher ◽  
Carole Rattray ◽  
Matthew Taylor ◽  
Charmaine Mitchell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiation Therapy ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Waiting Times ◽  
Wait Time ◽  
International Standards ◽  
University Hospital ◽  
Wait Times ◽  
Oncology Unit ◽  
The University ◽  
Mean Time

Abstract 53 Background: The European Board and College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology recommends that time from referral of suspected or proven gynaecological cancers to consultation should be within two weeks and that initiation of treatment should occur within six weeks. It is has been shown that a delay in waiting times beyond these international standards results in significantly increased morbidity and mortality. Methods: An audit of wait times was performed for all patients who presented to the gynaecology oncology unit at the University Hospital in Jamaica for consultation between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013. Wait time for consultation was calculated as the date of first referral to the date of initial consultation. Wait time for treatment was calculated as time from consultation to either surgery or initiation of radiation therapy or chemotherapy. Primary site, stage, and the region from which the referrals came were abstracted from the medical record. Results: A total of 1,289 unique patients were seen at least once during the audit period; of these, 108 were new consultations and 1,219 were patients seen for follow-up. 72% were from the greater metropolitan area (Kingston & St. Andrew), while the others were from the surrounding parishes of Jamaica. Of the 108 new patients, malignancy was confirmed in 70 (65%). Case make-up included 23 cases of endometrial cancer (33%); 20 cases of cervical cancer (29%); 16 cases of ovarian cancer (23%); and 11 cases of other gynecologic cancers (vulvar, vaginal, choriocarcinoma) (15%). At presentation, there were 23 patients with stage 1 disease (33%), 16 patients with stage 2 disease (23%), 27 patients with stage 3 disease (38%); and 4 patients with stage 4 disease (6%). 39 out of 70 patients with malignancy (56%) underwent surgery; 11 (15.7%) were treated with radiation therapy; and 22 (31%) were treated with chemotherapy. Among patients with a cancer diagnosis, the mean time from referral to consultation was 2.1 weeks. Mean time from consultation to surgery was 7.6 weeks; mean time from consultation to start of radiotherapy was 16 weeks; and mean time from consultation to start of chemotherapy was 11.6 weeks. 66% of patients underwent surgery within the international standard of six weeks from referral. Only 36% initiated radiation therapy and 14% initiated chemotherapy within six weeks from referral. Conclusion: While the majority of patients met international standards for time to consultation to surgery, wait times for initiation of radiation and chemotherapy were sub-standard. This audit has provided information that will help us to assess the inadequacy of available services and could potentially inform national cancer policies in Jamaica. AUTHORS' DISCLOSURES OF POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: No COIs from the authors.

How the Design of a 3D Printer Bridged Engineering Design Processes and the Agile Software Manifesto

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Lindberg ◽  
Matthew I. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Design Processes ◽  
The Past ◽  
Engineering Design Process ◽  
Agile Software ◽  
Scale Design

Abstract Individual engineering design projects face different challenges depending on their scale. Instead of dealing with problems of complex multidisciplinary systems, small scale design must overcome issues of limited resources. The philosophy of agile software development has been highly successful in addressing similar issues in the software engineering realm over the past two decades. Through the design and prototyping of a low-budget desktop stereolithography printer, the application of agile principles to engineering design process is explored. The printer’s design is discussed in detail to provide examples of successes and failures when these agile principles are put into practice. The paper concludes with a discussion of how agile principles could be leveraged in engineering design. The approach taken in this paper is more of a longitudinal study of a single design process over a twelve-month period as opposed to rigorous experiments that engage multiple users in short design scenarios. Nonetheless, this case study demonstrates how the application of agile principles can inform, improve, and complement traditional engineering design processes.

scholarly journals P140: Investigating volunteer perspectives on leading patient-centred practices in the emergency department

CJEM ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (S1) ◽  
pp. S114-S115
Author(s):  
L. Witt ◽  
T. Oyedokun ◽  
D. Goodridge ◽  
J. Stempien ◽  
T. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Department ◽  
Patient Satisfaction ◽  
Quality Care ◽  
Waiting Times ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Cultural Safety ◽  
Wait Times ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Survey Responses ◽  
Current Practices

Introduction: Patient satisfaction is an essential component of effective delivery of quality care in the emergency department (ED). Frequent reflection on current practices is required to detect areas in need of improvement. The Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) outlined five ‘Leading Practices’ (LPs) targeted to increase patient satisfaction in this setting. The ED volunteers are a group of individuals who have unique perspectives on ED practices that are unbiased by confounders affecting patients and staff. The goal of this study was to explore the unique perspectives of ED volunteers involving what they believe will improve the delivery of patient-centered care, as well as to examine to what extent Saskatoon EDs are embracing the principles outlined in the OHA LPs. Methods: A two-phase mixed methods approach, with a survey followed by interviews that allowed participants to expand on survey findings was used. The pool of 45 ED volunteers was extended the opportunity to participate resulting in 36 survey responses and 6 interviews. The 13 Likert-grade survey questions were generated to align to each of the LPs and allowed room for qualitative feedback. Interview questions were generated following 15 survey responses to expand on the LPs that were rated below average. Results: Analysis of responses identified inefficient ED processes leading to increased waiting times, inefficient patient location, inadequate signage, a lack of physical space, unclean environments, and a lack of staff and volunteer awareness regarding spiritual care and interpreter services, perceptions of received care by patients due to long wait times and level of cultural safety training of ED staff. Themes reduced from interviews yielded common themes such as patient frustration, disorganization, uncomfortable environment, overcrowding, prolonged wait times, and patient misconception of ED processes at Site 1. Themes common to Site 2 included organization, patient-friendly environment, patient misconception of ED processes, and prolonged wait times. Additionally, the volunteers suggested a plethora of interventions that could improve the current processes in Saskatoon's EDs to make them more patient friendly. Conclusion: Saskatoon EDs comply reasonably well to the OHA Leading practices. Surveying ED volunteers provides important insight into current practices and areas for improvement, and should be considered at other sites to improve adherence to the OHA LPs.

scholarly journals Waiting for Treatment for Chronic Pain – a Survey of Existing Benchmarks: Toward Establishing Evidence-Based Benchmarks for Medically Acceptable Waiting Times

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 245-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary E Lynch ◽  
Fiona A Campbell ◽  
Alexander J Clark ◽  
Michael J Dunbar ◽  
David Goldstein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Chronic Pain ◽  
Time Management ◽  
Task Force ◽  
International Association ◽  
Waiting Times ◽  
Wait Time ◽  
Wait Times ◽  
Pain Clinics ◽  
The World

As medical costs escalate, health care resources must be prioritized. In this context, there is an increasing need for benchmarks and best practices in wait time management. In December 2005, the Canadian Pain Society struck a Task Force to identify benchmarks for acceptable wait times for treatment of chronic pain. The task force mandate included a systematic review and survey to identify national or international wait time benchmarks for chronic pain, proposed or in use, along with a review of the evidence upon which they are based. An extensive systematic review of the literature and a survey of International Association for the Study of Pain Chapter Presidents and key informants has identified that there are no established benchmarks or guidelines for acceptable wait times for the treatment of chronic pain in use in the world. In countries with generic guidelines or wait time standards that apply to all outpatient clinics, there have been significant challenges faced by pain clinics in meeting the established targets. Important next steps are to ensure appropriate additional research and the establishment of international benchmarks or guidelines for acceptable wait times for the treatment of chronic pain. This will facilitate advocacy for improved access to appropriate care for people suffering from chronic pain around the world.

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