TY - JOUR
T1 - Using discrete-event simulation in strategic capacity planning for an outpatient physical therapy service
AU - Rau, Chi Lun
AU - Tsai, Pei Fang Jennifer
AU - Liang, Sheau Farn Max
AU - Tan, Jhih Cian
AU - Syu, Hong Cheng
AU - Jheng, Yue Ling
AU - Ciou, Ting Syuan
AU - Jaw, Fu Shan
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments This research was supported by National Taipei University for the Technology-Taipei Medical University Joint Research Program (Grant: NTUT-TMU-100-14). The authors would like to thank the senior therapist Mr. Jiunn-Der Liao and the entire staff from the participating hospital for their assistance and support.
PY - 2013/12/1
Y1 - 2013/12/1
N2 - This study uses a simulation model as a tool for strategic capacity planning for an outpatient physical therapy clinic in Taipei, Taiwan. The clinic provides a wide range of physical treatments, with 6 full-time therapists in each session. We constructed a discrete-event simulation model to study the dynamics of patient mixes with realistic treatment plans, and to estimate the practical capacity of the physical therapy room. The changes in time-related and space-related performance measurements were used to evaluate the impact of various strategies on the capacity of the clinic. The simulation results confirmed that the clinic is extremely patient-oriented, with a bottleneck occurring at the traction units for Intermittent Pelvic Traction (IPT), with usage at 58.9 %. Sensitivity analysis showed that attending to more patients would significantly increase the number of patients staying for overtime sessions. We found that pooling the therapists produced beneficial results. The average waiting time per patient could be reduced by 45 % when we pooled 2 therapists. We found that treating up to 12 new patients per session had no significantly negative impact on returning patients. Moreover, we found that the average waiting time for new patients decreased if they were given priority over returning patients when called by the therapists.
AB - This study uses a simulation model as a tool for strategic capacity planning for an outpatient physical therapy clinic in Taipei, Taiwan. The clinic provides a wide range of physical treatments, with 6 full-time therapists in each session. We constructed a discrete-event simulation model to study the dynamics of patient mixes with realistic treatment plans, and to estimate the practical capacity of the physical therapy room. The changes in time-related and space-related performance measurements were used to evaluate the impact of various strategies on the capacity of the clinic. The simulation results confirmed that the clinic is extremely patient-oriented, with a bottleneck occurring at the traction units for Intermittent Pelvic Traction (IPT), with usage at 58.9 %. Sensitivity analysis showed that attending to more patients would significantly increase the number of patients staying for overtime sessions. We found that pooling the therapists produced beneficial results. The average waiting time per patient could be reduced by 45 % when we pooled 2 therapists. We found that treating up to 12 new patients per session had no significantly negative impact on returning patients. Moreover, we found that the average waiting time for new patients decreased if they were given priority over returning patients when called by the therapists.
KW - Clinic capacity planning
KW - Patient mix
KW - Terminating simulation
KW - Therapist pooling
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U2 - 10.1007/s10729-013-9234-2
DO - 10.1007/s10729-013-9234-2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84887409084
SN - 1386-9620
VL - 16
SP - 352
EP - 365
JO - Health Care Management Science
JF - Health Care Management Science
IS - 4
ER -