Case Analysis 2: Hospital Laboratory Emergency Department (ED) Turnaround Time (TAT)

The response time for medical lab tests is critical to the quality of care received by patients and satisfaction of physicians within the Emergency Department. Standards for ED laboratory turnaround time indicate that goals should be set to not more than 60 minutes from the time that the laboratory test is ordered until the time that the test results is verified and reported to the ED physician. In this case analysis you are asked to do the following using the information provided below:

Activity	Predecessor	Optimistic Time (minute)	Most Likely Time (minute)	Pessimistic Time (minute)
A. Ordering	--	4	6	9
B. Collection of orders	A	10	15	20
C. Identification of patients	A	6	10	15
D. Obtaining specimen	B, C	35	45	60
E. Transportation of specimen	D	10	16	26
F. Analysis of specimen	E	6	12	25
G. Reporting result	F	3	5	10
H. Receiving result	G	11	15	26

Note: please keep one decimal position throughout your analysis. Answer each question in no more than 3 pages including PERT chart and prioritization matrix. You can submit in Excel if you prefer.

For the past year, physicians complained about the delay in ED laboratory TAT. The impression is that on average, the TAT takes 2 hours. You are to evaluate the laboratory TAT in an emergency department (ED) and generate a simple PERT for identifying TAT critical path. Suppose based on the data you collected, you found out that on average the TAT is 90 minutes with 15 minutes standard deviation. How often (or what percent) is the TAT two hours or longer?

The result of your analysis should allow a Lean Six Sigma team to:

1. Identify the critical path of TAT.
2. Understand the ED TAT process efficiency.
3. Focus the improving efforts on one step prioritized.

The result of your analysis should allow a Lean Six Sigma team to:

1. Identify the critical path of TAT.
2. Understand the ED TAT process efficiency.
3. Focus the improving efforts on one step prioritized.