Method and system of measuring and quantifying inefficiencies in a healthcare facility

[0002] The present invention relates to methods and systems for improving the performance of a department in a healthcare facility. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method of evaluating and reducing inefficiencies in the department.

[0003] Healthcare facilities such as hospitals and clinics are generally organized in departments specializing in specific areas of medical science such as immunology, cardiology, and radiology. Generally, specialized personnel and equipment are available in each department to provide medical treatment in the area of specialization. Often times, these departments must repeatedly perform the same or similar procedures on many patients. By way of example, radiology departments often carry out many similar procedures using radiant energy to diagnose and treat disease. One well-known use of radiation is in the creation of radiographs that are used to evaluate injuries such as bone fractures.

[0004] In general, before a specialized procedure is performed in a department of a healthcare facility, a patient is evaluated by a physician that typically does not specialize in the medical area covered by the relevant department (the “referring physician”). Once the referring physician has determined that a specialized procedure would facilitate the diagnosis or treatment of the patient, the patient is sent to the applicable department and the staff there conducts the requested procedure.

[0005] While the above description makes the process seem simple, examining a patient can be logistically complex and involve many steps. Using a radiological procedure as an example, following his or her initial examination, a patient must schedule an appointment for the radiological examination. Then, the patient must travel to the department at the appointed time and date. Upon arrival at the radiology department the patient registers with the radiology staff and is prepared for the radiological examination, if necessary, such as by donning an examination gown. The patient may then have to wait until an examining room is available and then is examined. Following the examination, the radiograph or other imagery must be examined by a radiologist. Finally, the radiologist prepares a report which is then sent to the referring physician.

[0006] The competence and efficiency with which each of these tasks is conducted affects the overall quality and efficiency of the radiology department. It also affects the patient's and referring physician's satisfaction with the services performed. Thus, to the extent that efficiency and satisfaction could be improved, the operation of the department, including such things as quality and profitability, could also likely be improved. Yet, scientific and other structured methodologies have not, in general, been applied to study and improve the operations of a radiology department or, for that matter, other procedures that are carried out on a relatively frequent basis in the departments of a healthcare facility. Accordingly, there is a need for a method or system of evaluating and improving the operations of a department in a healthcare facility.

[0007] Therefore, the present invention provides a method and system for measuring and quantifying inefficiencies in the operations of a department in a healthcare facility. The method and system are useful in identifying the root causes of inefficient operation of the department so that change can be effected that improves the operation of the department.

[0008] The method includes the acts of collecting a plurality of characterization measurements for a medical procedure, where each characterization measurement corresponds to an individual step in the procedure. The collection of the measurements may be done by a variety of known manual and automated techniques, none of which is critical, by itself, to the invention. Of course, like any measurement process, accurate measurements are desirable. Once the measurements are collected, a sum of squares analysis is performed on the measurements to determine the effect of each step on the examination procedure. Further analysis is conducted to determine the activities within each process step that have the highest impact on the time needed to complete the subject task that makes up the step. These activities are known as the key drivers. A regression analysis is then performed on the key drivers to determine the effect of the key drivers on the overall time to complete the procedure. The key drivers are then changed to adjust the procedure as desired.

[0009] It is an advantage of the present invention to provide a structured analysis of medical procedures conducted in a healthcare facility. As a part of the analysis, key root causes for inefficiency are found and analyzed appropriately. Another advantage of the present invention is that the procedure may be modified to reduce or eliminate the identified causes of inefficiency. This results in procedures that may be accomplished in less time and with less resources than previously obtainable. The reduction in time leads to shorter completion times and faster diagnoses and treatments. The reduction in resources leads to enhanced profitability and lower prices.

[0010] Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent by consideration of the detailed description and accompanying drawings.

[0011] In the drawings:

[0012] FIG. 1 is a flow chart illustrating the general process of producing a report for a radiological examination conducted on a patient in a radiology department; and

[0013] FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating the process of producing a report on a radiological examination where steps that heavily impact or drive report turn around time have been identified.

[0014] As noted above, scientific and other structured methodologies have not, in general, been applied to improving medical procedures. The inventor has discovered that by conducting certain statistical analyses on medical procedures, inefficiencies in those procedures may be identified. Further, once those inefficiencies are identified, improvements to the process may be made. While it is assumed that the reader understands statistical methods, before discussing the particular aspects of the present invention, a brief summary of the statistical methods used is in order.

[0015] Analysis of variances (known as “ANOVA”) is a statistical methodology used to test hypotheses about differences between two or more means (intermediate values). For example, suppose a researcher has performed a study on various methods of caring for plants; methods A, B, C, and D, with a control group E. Suppose, again, that the goal of the study is to determine if one method is more effective than the others and, for purposes of this example, assume that twenty plants are assigned to each group. At the end of the study, changes in health were found for each plant. However, how does the researcher compare the means of each of the groups in order to make a determination as to the effectiveness of the methods? One way would be to individually compare each group to all the others. For the present example, this would require ten comparisons. Using ANOVA, the number of comparisons may be reduced.

[0016] Without explaining the entire underlying theory, ANOVA relies on statistical sampling. A sample is a finite number (N) of scores and those scores may be interpreted through such statistics as the mean (x), the mode (M_o), the median (M_d) and standard deviation (s_x). The sample statistics may then be used as estimators of the corresponding parameters in the population model. A sampling distribution may then be found to further analyze the sample statistics. Ultimately, the variance of a population and a measure of how different the means are relative to the variability within each sample may be used to determine the likelihood that the differences between the means of each group are due to chance rather than real effects. ANOVA analyses may be conducted using commercially available software.

[0017] Before one embodiment of the invention is explained in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and is capable of being practiced or of being carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology used herein is for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.

[0018] FIG. 1 schematically illustrates a radiological examination procedure 10 resulting in the generation of a radiological report 12. (It should be understood, that the radiological procedure 10 is used as an exemplary medical procedure and that the teachings of the present invention are applicable to other procedures.) As noted above, once a determination is made that a patient needs or requires a radiological procedure, the patient (represented by the patient P) interacts with a radiology department with the final result of producing a radiological report. The procedure 10 may be conceptualized as having four major steps: a pre-examination step 15; a main examination step 17; an evaluation step 19; and a distribution step 21. The pre-examination step 15 involves several sub-steps: ordering the radiological procedure 23, scheduling the procedure 25, waiting for the examination 27, and registration 29. Once ordered and scheduled, the actual examination or procedure is conducted. The main examination step 17 includes a period of patient preparation and waiting 31, an actual examination period 33, and quality control review 35 of the image made during the examination. Once an image of sufficient quality has been produced, it must be evaluated by a radiologist. The evaluation step 19 requires image hanging or display 41 and review and interpretation 43 of the image. Generally, as the radiologist reviews the image he or she dictates an oral report on the results of the radiological procedure as represented by a dictation sub-step 45. The final step in evaluation of the examination is a transcription sub-step 47 where the dictated report is transcribed to a form that may be printed.

[0019] Once the report is transcribed, it is distributed. The distribution step 21 involves a report printing sub-step 51, a printing to signature box sub-step 52 during which the printed report is transferred to a signature box, a signing of the report sub-step 53, and an actual distribution of the report sub-step 55, where the report is sent to the referring physician, the patient, or both. The radiology examination process as shown in FIG. 1, is represented in a process map shown below in Table 1. Each process step has a corresponding characterization measurement. In other words, each process step may be considered as representing a characterization measurement.

[0020] The measurements listed in Table 1 may be made using various known manual and automated statistical collection techniques. By collecting the characterization measurements for each of the plurality of steps in Table 1, a sum of squares in an ANOVA may be used to determine the effect of each step on the examination procedure 10. The result is a model containing the effect each process step has on the overall measurement of the time needed to complete the procedure 10. This time is equivalent to or may be considered to be the report turnaround time (“RTT”). The results of an exemplary ANOVA based on the characterization measurements of Table 1 are shown in Table 2. The ANOVA illustrated was conducted using Minitab™ software.

[0021] The data in Table 2 reflects the results of the ANOVA analysis modified to accommodate experiences encountered during the measurement process. First, the second sequence step, scheduling a procedure 25, was eliminated because the time to complete the step was found to be insignificant in relative comparison to the times required to complete other tasks. In addition, an additional sequence step, day of the week, was added to the analysis because it was found that the specific day that the exam was ordered or performed affected completion of the procedure. This occurred because staffing levels often varied by the day of the week. In general, the first part of the week was fully staffed where the latter part of the week or “weekend,” as used herein, was staffed at lower levels.

[0022] While adding or removing steps based on observations is not required, doing so enhances the accuracy of the analysis. Once the data in Table 2 is obtained, each of the process steps may be further analyzed to determine the activities within each that have the highest impact on the time needed to complete the subject task. In other words, the “key drivers” for each step are determined. As an alternative to analyzing each process step, those process steps having the highest percentage of contribution to the sum of squares total may be identified. Preferably, and as shown in Table 2 and FIG. 2, the top five or six measurements are identified. For the example discussed herein, the top six measurements were waiting for an opening 27, review and interpretation of image 43, transcription 47, printing 51, signing of the report 53, and actual distribution 55.

[0023] Once the key drivers are identified, whether derived for all or only a portion of the process steps in the procedure 10, a multiple regression method is used to determine the effect of the key drivers on the overall measurement, i.e., the RTT. The regression analysis performed is consistent with standard regression methods where the dependent variable (in this case, one of the process steps in the procedure) is examined in light of its independent variables (the activities or sub-steps that make up each process step). The correlation between the dependent variable and its independent variables determines which activity or sub-step has the greatest impact on the overall process. As with the ANOVA analysis, the regression analysis may be performed using commercially available software such as the Minitab software noted above. Once the important independent variables or key indicators are found, they are modified to change the larger process as desired. This is best understood by reference to Table 3, below.

[0024] In the example shown in Table 3, the first key driver or indicator found was poor staffing that affected the time a patient had to wait for an available examination time, i.e., an opening. For example, a physician might order a procedure on a Tuesday morning but there may not be an opening until the following morning, causing a wait of about twenty-four hours. This wait is caused, in large part, by the single-shift staffing schedules of radiology departments. For example, if a department operates from 8 am to 4 pm, and all openings are booked for that period, an overnight delay is automatically added to the wait period because the next possible opening will occur the following day. By overlapping two shifts, e.g., 6 am to 2 pm and 12 pm to 8 pm the operating hours for the department are extended to 6 am to 8 pm increasing the number of possible openings in a single day and decreasing the likelihood of an overnight delay. Thus, one solution to reducing the time of the waiting for an opening step 27 is to overlap schedules.

[0025] The next key driver or indicator found through the regression analysis was batch processing. It was found that radiologists tend to wait until numerous images have accumulated before they are reviewed. Generally, an overnight delay occurred because radiologists reviewed images the day after they had been made. The same would occur at times when staffing levels were reduced, such as might occur on Saturdays and Sundays. These delays cause inefficiencies in transcription because transcribers face times of little activity followed by times where numerous dictated reports must be transcribed. By overlapping the schedule of radiologists, a more consistent stream of dictated reports is generated causing a more consistent production of transcriptions. The improvement is enhanced by matching transcription schedules to radiologist staffing.

[0026] Interestingly, it was found that batch behavior caused inefficiency in the printing and signature box steps 51 and 52. By effecting changes that cause more consistent production of work product, the RTT was reduced. Further, the results indicate that implementing electronic solutions such as voice-recognition and electronic distribution technologies are likely to eliminate the need for steps affected by batch processing. Thus, it is believed that further improvements in RTT may be made in hospitals and healthcare facilities that implement these technologies.

[0027] As can be seen above, the present invention provides a structured methodology for improving the efficiency of medical procedures and, more specifically, the production and distribution of radiological information. Various features and advantages of the invention are set forth in the following claims.