Effekterna av ett C ommand Center på en avdelning fö r magnetkameraundersökningar : Analys med Discrete Event Simulation

Sammanfattning: In the last decade the number of radiological examinations in Sweden have increased steadily. Radiology nurses are experiencing an increasing workload and the situation is not expected to revert as it is predicted that the population of the country will continue to grow. Meanwhile there has been a decline in the number of applications to education programs for radiology nurses. Given this situation as well as the key role of the radiology nurse in this type of examination it is of interest to the healthcare sector to explore how to maximize the utilization of this vital group of professionals. The purpose of this report is to examine whether the number of scans performed per year and nurse can be increased by the introduction of a command center. To narrow the scope, the study is limited to MRI scans and the effect the system might have on the number of scans on a single clinic in Sweden. This is done by using Discrete Event Simulation to simulate and compare the flow of patients through the clinic with and without the command center. The results show that an introduction of the system will increase the number of possible scans per year and nurse. However, it is concluded that the effect on a single clinic is limited and that it is only present when there are fewer radiology nurses than there are MRI scanners. Although an implementation of a command center might prove costly it has to be weighed against the opportunity it provides in solving a future potential bottleneck in Swedish healthcare.