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Homework answers / question archive / When a patient enters the Valley Health Clinical Laboratory to have his blood drawn and a Chemistry Panel and CBC run, he spends, on average 2 minutes at patient check-in, 45 minutes in the waiting area, 5 minutes having his medical history updated, and 8 minutes having his blood taken
When a patient enters the Valley Health Clinical Laboratory to have his blood drawn and a Chemistry Panel and CBC run, he spends, on average 2 minutes at patient check-in, 45 minutes in the waiting area, 5 minutes having his medical history updated, and 8 minutes having his blood taken. Show all work and explain any assumptions you made in coming up with your answer.
Question 1: If the clinical laboratory has 3 full-time Med Techs, operates 8 hours per day and demands is 75 patients per day, what is the takt time? Assume the med techs take a 30-minute lunch.
Question 2: Can the Valley Health Clinical Laboratory meet the demand? Yes or No
Question 3: Explain your choice of answer to the preceding question.
Question 4: What could be done to improve the Valley Health Clinical Laboratory process?
Calculate the cycle time by adding the times of all steps, as shown below:
| Step | Time (minutes) |
|---|---|
| Check-in | 2 |
| Waiting | 45 |
| Updation of medical history | 5 |
| Giving blood | 8 |
| Cycle Time: | 60 |
Answer 1)
Working hours per day = 7.5 (since 30 minutes are spent on lunch)
Demand per day = 75 patients
Number of employees = 3
Total hours per day = 3 employees * 7.5 hours
Total hours per day = 22.5 hours
Takt time = Available time/ Demand
Takt time = 22.5 hours/ 75 patients
Takt time = 0.3 hours/patient
Answer 2 and 3
Cycle time = 60 minutes per patient while the takt time is 0.3 hours per patient.
Thus, since the takt time is lesser than the cycle lime of the entire process, the demand will be met.
Answer 4)
To further improve the process, the laboratory can do the following things:
a) Try to minimize the waiting time for each patient.
b) The patients should have an option of online check-in to eliminate the 2 minutes from the cycle time and will also end up diminishing the waiting time.
