Poor Communication Between Patient and Scheduling Department

CASE STUDY

QUINTE MRI

SUBMITTED BY

IMRAN MEHDI

OPERATIONS AND PROCESS MODULE 4

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title                                                                        Page Number

Executive summary                                                                3

Issue Identification                                                                4

Analysis of the Process                                                        5

Alternatives with Pro and Con                                                6

Recommendations                                                                7

Implementation                                                                9

Monitor and Control                                                                10

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Quinte MRI is a growing international service provider which:

1. Helped design
2. Installed and operated scanning centres
3. Provided continued training and support for data interpretation.

The backlog has now exceeded 14 days, resulting in providing poor quality of service to the patients. This backlog has raised questions on the relationship between BCMC and Quinte MRI and has lost referrals to the competing MRI clinics in attempt to obtain a timely scan. Extensive wait times has placed constraints on the overall process and caused bottlenecks in the MRI process which resulted in poor customer satisfaction and with overly working concerns of BCMC sole MR technologist, Jeff Sinclair.

The scheduling department will require improvements in order to reduce cycle time and flow of information from patient to technologist as in a typical supply chain. I recommend that better managing the scheduling process will definitely reduce wait times and increase productivity to meet set expectations of two patients per hour, which gives an output rate of 16 MRIs per day or 64 MRIs per working week without having to hire additional MR technologist. 

ISSUE IDENTIFICATION

POOR COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PATIENT AND SCHEDULING DEPARTMENT

Poor communication between the MRI clinic (scheduling staff) and its patients is evident. There are times when patients fail to show up for their appointment or they are cancelling at the last minute. BCMC has never had this responsibility before and they are not aware of how long each type of procedure takes.

POOR PROCESS DESIGN & IDLE TIME

The current process allows MRI machine to be idle for 39.5 minutes in an hour.  The various tasks carried out by technologist are wasting overall time for MRI process.

WORK OVERLOAD

The only MR technologist is working 40 hours of overtime several weeks in a row to catch up with the appointments. He is responsible for scheduling delays. He experiences frantic running around in order to get the procedures done that have been poorly scheduled.  

ANALYSIS OF THE PROCESS 

In my opinion there are several operational issues causing problems in MRI scanning process. First I believe that there is a problem with the scheduling of patients in that it lacks accuracy, consistency and clarity. Since this operation is being handled by BCMC, Quinte MRI is finding itself at a disadvantage in terms of being able to control this part of the operation. The operation appears to be purely manual, handled by several persons and in prone to input and interpretive errors. Since patients can be sent for scanning via two means (scheduled and same day (unscheduled)) some amount of variability will result. Variability and uncertainty in the scheduling operation is negatively impacting capacity utilization resulting in overall reduction of efficiency in the scanning process.  Following is the time consumption for MRI process:  

ALTERNATIVES

1. Change/update Scheduling process
2. Hire MRI Assistant
3. Transferring Scheduling responsibilities from BCMC

PRO AND CON

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Non-technical processes from reception to escorting the patient to MRI room can be done and checked by an assistant (because it does not require any specialized training) initially saving time of the MR technologist, increasing output and generating more revenue.  
2. Another process change can be involved by implementing a live calling system--opposed to a recorded system--reminding patients when to arrive for their exams.
3. We can add electronic grease-board, displaying the steps involved with each MR exam to enable technologists to better monitor the schedule. And pediatric anesthesia slots will be reorganized so that they started earlier and will be shorter in duration, which will result in the addition of eight more slots in the course of a week.
4. If I update the scheduling process accordingly for MR technologist and assistant as under, we can almost do 2 MRI in an hour.