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

Calculate the cycle time by adding the times of all steps, as shown below:

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.