Summary
Quinte MRI’s leased MRI machine is not meeting expected output causing loss of revenue for the clinic and hurting BCMC’s reputation in the community. This problem is coming from the scheduling of scanning operations at the clinic.
Recommendations
Quinte MRI’s leased MRI machine was promised to handle 2 scans per hour and is currently struggling to handle 1 per hour. I am confident that Quinte needs to improve the scheduling department’s communication with the Radiologist and MR Technologists. Jeff is unable to meet the demand of reading the scan as soon as the patient is done. If Jeff were to read the scan right away, it would take longer from him get the next scan started. Quinte needs to hire a new MR Technologist in order to keep up with demand, increase revenue, and increase patient satisfaction. This will add a cost of $38 per hour plus benefits, but will eliminate overtime for Jeff. Hiring a new MR Technologist will have the following benefits: increased productivity, less errors, alleviate workload for Jeff allowing for a backup when Jeff needs a day off, and increase revenues. The only cons of doing this are the new costs that will be added and the risk that this solution may not pay off.
Having a back log of 14 days is a huge issue in the medical field. If a patient needs an MRI it is because something is wrong in their body and they need to figure it out ASAP. This is providing terrible quality of service to its patients. Extensive wait times have caused bottlenecks in the MRI process and have placed constraints on the overall process. Patients are going to be upset and bring their business to another clinic. Quinte is going to lose revenue and referrals from the doctor and other patients. I am confident that the scheduling system needs to be revamped. Patients need to be aware of what to wear to the appointment to save time, have a waiting list incase patients cancel their appointments, and patients need to be screened properly before making an appointment to determine if they are a candidate for the scan. Having an electronic scheduling system would make everyone in the office aware of the schedule immediately. Having scheduling done by paper is not going to be accurate for how much time each appointment should take and will not allow for information to travel to all working as quickly. The pros of changing the scheduling system will increase the flow of capacity, increase accuracy, decrease chance of errors, and increase revenues for the clinic.
Risks
The risk involved in hiring a new MR Technologist could involve demand decreasing for MRI’s. There may be a new technology that comes out, which is more high tech than an MRI. This is probably a pretty small risk, but could happen. The demand for different months of the year is pretty flat, which will allow for better capacity utilization. If the scheduling system was fixed, Jeff may be able to handle more of the demand, which would result in the clinic being overstaffed.
The risk for changing the scheduling process could involve technology system issues or issues training the staff how to use the technology. I think the biggest risk is going to be training the staff to adapt to change. If the staff cannot handle the changes to the process, it could cause the whole system to fail.