Sponsor:

Medical Center Hospital, City of Odessa, Texas

Research Team:

Jennifer A. Farris, Timothy Matis, Carlos Siri, Melissa Grissom, Iris Rivero

Universities Involved:

Texas Tech University

Start Date:

01/06/10

End Date:

01/06/11

Summary:

The purpose of this project is to identify the delays in the patient discharge process at Medical Center Hospital, Odessa,TX and estimate the patient’s target discharge time. This will ultimately be used for routing and scheduling purposes.
There is a lack of structure in the patient discharge process that causes undesirably long lead times. This occurs at times of the day that compromise the admitting process of patients into the floor units. Our objective is to identify the delays in the process and estimate the patient’s target discharge time. This will ultimately be used for routing and scheduling purposes. This research will be of specific interest to member companies whose work involves healthcare or other service operations. The categorization approach, classifying customers or units into red or green flag, for routing and scheduling purposes can be use in other settings. The standardized discharge process, categorization system, and routing/scheduling procedures can be used in other hospitals.