Dr. Martin L. Puterman, Research Director of the CHCM and Professor of Operations Research at the Sauder School of Business, knows that protecting the human face of health care – the patient – can be one of the biggest challenges managers face in improving efficiencies.
Dr. Scott Tyldesley, Radiation Oncologist (left) discusses treatment with a patient at the BCCA Ambulatory Care Unit while Vincent Chow observes. Tyldesley and Chow are members of CIHR Team in Operations Research.
So when the BC Cancer Agency (BCCA) approached Dr. Puterman, co-investigator Dr. Scott Tyldesley and their colleagues on the CIHR Team in Operations Research (OR) to help streamline the use of physical space and operations in their Ambulatory Care Unit (ACU) at Vancouver Centre, he knew they’d need an approach that emphasized the patient perspective.
“Few researchers have examined these kinds of problems from the patients’ point of view,” explains Pablo Santibanez, an OR Scientist with the team and Puterman’s former student. “We saw this as a terrific opportunity. If we could find a way to decrease patient wait times while improving operational efficiencies in the ACU, we’d create a win-win for everyone.”
The team designed an innovative research program that included a detailed time study to track every step of over 600 patients, recording their wait times, contact times, resource use and overall clinic times. Researchers combined these data with other sources, including a patient satisfaction survey, to build a sophisticated simulation capable of modeling the complex operations of multiple clinics operating simultaneously in the ACU.
After running over 100 scenarios through the simulation, the team found that, by combining a number of changes to the processes in the ACU, they could reduce patient wait times by 70%, while decreasing physical space requirements by 25 %. Their findings will inform plans for a future replacement ACU.
Dr. John French, Director of Clinical Operations and administrator for the research program for the BCCA, sees this work as a valuable contribution to his organization’s on-going pursuit of operations excellence. “We’re committed to developing models for using OR effectively in health care and it’s critical for us to ensure that we capture the patient’s voice in that work. Being able to partner with Dr. Puterman and his colleagues has been hugely helpful for us. It’s a terrific indication of how health care and academia really fit together well in a very robust relationship that benefits both sides.”
Publication:
Santibanez, P., Chow, V., French, J., Puterman, M., Tyldesley, S. Reducing patient wait times and improving resource utilization at British Columbia Cancer Agency’s ambulatory care unit through simulation. Health Care Management Science (2009).
