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- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
Description
The challenge of healthcare delivery has attracted widespread attention since the report published by the World Health Organization in 2000, ranking the US 37th in overall health systems performance among 191 Member States. In addition, Davis et al. (2007) demonstrated that healthcare costs in the US were higher than all other countries, despite the fact that care was not the better than all other countries. The growing population in the US, combined with continued medical advances, has increased the demand for quality healthcare services. With this growth, however, comes the challenge of managing rising costs and maintaining efficient operations while satisfying patient's service level. Research has explored methods of improvement from system engineering, lean and process improvement, and mathematical programming of healthcare operations, to improve healthcare operations. In this project, we are interested in a patient access (patient registration) problem. The key research question is: what is an optimal decision in terms of patient admitting points considering both hospital cost and service level of patient access? To answer this question, we propose the use of the Queueing Theory to evaluate scenarios in a multi-objective decision setting implemented by Excel VBA (Visual Basic for Application). The first objective is to provide a "generic" Excel-based model with user-friendly interface such that users are able to visualize outcomes by changing chosen parameters and understand model sensitivities. The second objective is to evaluate the use Queueing in this patient access staffing decision. The data was provided by Healthcare Excellence Institute (HEI), a Phoenix-based consulting company which has experience in improving healthcare operation for more than 8 years. HEI has several hospital clients interested in determining the "optimal" number of admitting points which motivates us to develop this research project. Please note due to business confidentiality, the date used in this thesis has been modified.
ContributorsXu, Chuan (Author) / Wu, Teresa (Thesis director) / Shunk, Dan (Committee member) / Dick, Mischa (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2012-05
Description
Waiting in line for attractions is an unavoidable part of every theme park visit. Many theme park designers have tried ways to make these waits shorter and more enjoyable. Such techniques include offering a separate ‘fast lane’ for certain Guests or creating additional load platforms for higher Guest throughput. Both the queues themselves as well as the attraction’s operation have an enormous effect on how many Guests can experience it in a day, and relatedly, how long they will have to wait for that experience.
This paper will utilize both queueing theory and personal work experience to analyze the queues and operations of two attractions at the Magic Kingdom Park: the Tomorrowland Speedway and the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover. I use my own personal experience working at these attractions as well as queueing data I recorded to show areas for improvement in queue design and operations, as well as potential solutions to increase efficiency and lower operational costs.
ContributorsMarples, Maddy (Author) / Eftekhar, Mahyar (Thesis director) / Lauterborn, Tracey (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor)
Created2023-12