The client is considering a triage strategy that would allocate greater resources to the ER automatically when more than 35 patients are admitted in under an hour. They expect this to reduce wait times from an average of 100 minutes to an average of 60 minutes for the 20% of patients affected. If the hospital receives an average of around 700 patients per day, how many total patient-minutes of wait time will be saved by this policy?
Answer: 5600 patient minutes.
How did they get this answer?
Minutes saved: 100-60 = 40
Patients impacted: 20% * 700 = 140
Patient minutes = 40 * 140 = 5600.
Hi there,
This is indeed an interesting, very specific question, so I am happy to provide my perspective on it:
In case you want a more detailed discussion on the whole case study and what the ideal approach would be, please feel free to contact me directly.
I hope this helps,
Hagen
(edited)
how do we know that the patients affected are 20% of 700? Since it says this triage strategy is applied only when patients admitted ? 35 per hour, shouldn't we scale the 700 patients per day to patients per hour by looking at the operating hours of the ER?
Lay things out simply in a Table - that helps a lot!
(edited)
Hi there,
Anonymous B has provided the answer.
This is a classic breakeven. Make sure you understand all of the applications of breakeven and how to setup the formula in various contexts!
Check out prior Q&As for help here: https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum?query=breakeven
700*20%*(100-60)
.
(edited)
