Poster

Client Context

The client is the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University Hospital Midtown (Winship). Winship is a comprehensive cancer facility that provides treatment across 17 stories and more than 450,000 square feet. The facility opened for treatment in May of 2023 with an outpatient model that adopts the patient-centered universal room concept, where all the necessary doctors, staff, and services are brought to the patient staying in one room. This model maximizes patient comfort as patients do not need to switch locations during their visit.

Executive Summary

Our client is the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University Hospital Midtown (Winship). Winship opened in May 2023 and is a part of Georgia's only National Cancer Institute-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. Winship’s outpatient rooms (also referred to as care suites) employ the patient-centered, universal room model that can carry out all the treatments, labs, and appointments throughout the patient’s stay, maximizing patient comfort. The project motivation lies in Winship’s projected patient growth of 4-6% each year. The team aims to help the Winship Outpatient Operations Team prepare for future demand by addressing two opportunities for the 8th floor: 1. a reassessment of appointment time slots, and 2. forecasting resource requirements using Simio model analysis. Currently, infusion appointment time slots inaccurately estimate the total time a patient spends in the room by 42 minutes on average; exam appointment time slots inaccurately estimate average service time of doctors by 13 minutes, while lacking metric to account for patient time in room. Through a regression model built with historical data on patient appointment durations, the team found recommendations for infusion appointment time slots that more accurately estimate patient time in room by 6.37%. Through using a newsvendor model that minimizes time wasted in delays and doctor idle time, the team found 3 recommendations for each aspect of exam appointments: patient time in room, current doctor service time (improved by 26.2%), and new doctor service time (improved by 25.3%). Winship will receive these recommendations in an Excel file with a written report summarizing methodologies used and insights. Through the project opportunity of forecasting resource requirements with a Simio model, Winship will have better visibility of their outpatient floor system flow. The Simio model simulates the process of a patient going through the 8th floor from arrival to discharge. The input parameters, including patient arrival rate and resource (doctor and nurse) capacity, are modified to identify potential bottlenecks, through indicators of patient wait times and resource utilization. The Simio experiments concluded that the doctor utilization most closely follows the increasing trend of patient wait time. Daily patient throughput of the 8th floor is calculated to be 45 patients in the current state and 65 patients with increased resource capacity. Winship will receive these recommendations via a written report including applications of this data to other insights.

Project Information

Spring 2024
Emory Winship

Student Team

Jacob Schroeder

Suhyun Yun

Amelia Ayers

Shayna Coffsky

Julian Arbelaez

Calvin Dong

Aisha Sobti

Faculty Advisor

Faculty Evaluator