ADHB Orderly Simulation Project

Objectives:

-Use historical data out of the INFRA transit booking system to develop a simulation of in-patient transit between Radilogy and other departments with the assistance of orderlies.

-Once the simulation has been developed and validated, use it to explore different scheduling scenarios.

Expected outcomes:

Summary of ADHB Meeting 25/11/10

-Ethics approval required as particular patients may be identified from the data

-Radiology Sites-Level 5 (main site), Level 2 (Emergency), Level 9 (Maternity)

-Focussed on inpatients, those already admitted. These patients are moved to/from radiology. This could be from any ward/theater/critical care.

-Two orderly teams. We are focussing on the non-maternity team.

-Transfers are scheduled using an online booking system by the MRT imagers.

-Bookings may not be communicated correctly, but we will assume they are for the purposes of this project

-The booking system is known as INFRA

-The time taken for the radiography procedures is relatively reliable, the main variability is in the set-up times for different patients, which depends on the condition of the patient.

-Approximately 2/3 of patients can be taken by orderlies on their own, and around 1/4 or more require the presence of a transit nurse due to the condition of the patient.

-Specific nurses are assigned to be transit nurses for a particular shift. The ratio of transit nurses to orderlies is around 1:4.

-The target is for a patient to reach their destination within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.

-As a measure of the arrival time, we use the time the orderly calls the dispatcher to report the job completed-assume that this is the arrival time, no delay from orderly.

-Dispatcher will schedule MRIs in preference to X-rays

-Return+transit jobs are handled by the same scheduler

-Need to do return jobs-if too many people are left waiting then beds fill up and people cannot be transferred into Radiology.

-Possible thing to explore with simulation: what happens if the orderly stays with the patient throughout the radiology procedure

-First step in simulation-use historical data.