Question

A community health system’s nurse team consists of 12 nurses working in the local community. It takes a nurse 1.25 hours to complete one patient visit (including travel times and breaks).   Round "Utilization" to a whole percent, and "Cycle Time" to 1 decimal. a. What is the capacity of the nurse team over the course of a 9 hour work day?   per 9 hour work day         b. Assuming the demand for the nurses is 60 patients per day, what is the utilization of the nurse team?   percent         c. Assuming the demand for the nurses is 60 patients per day, what is the cycle time? . minutes per patient

Answer 1

The data of community health system is given below:

Time required for one patient \(=1.25\) hours

Number of nurses in the team \(=12\)

a) Calculate the capacity of the nurse team over the course of a 9-hour work day as follows:

$$ \begin{aligned} \text { Capacity for one hour } &=\frac{\text { Number of nurse }}{\text { Time required by one paitent }} \\ &=\frac{12}{1.25} \\ &=9.6 \\ \text { Capacity for } 9 \text { hour } & \text { = Capacity for one hour } \times \text { Availabe time } \\ &=9.6 \times 9 \\ &=86.4 \sim 86 \end{aligned} $$

b) Calculate the utilization of the nurse team, if the demand for the nurses is 60 patients per day as follows:

$$ \begin{aligned} \text { Utilization } &=\frac{\text { Demand }}{\text { Capacity }} \times 100 \\ &=\frac{60}{86} \times 100 \\ &=69.7 \% \sim 70 \% \end{aligned} $$

Therefore, the utilization of the nurse team, if the demand for the nurses is 60 patients per day is \begin{tabular}{|l|} \hline 70 percent \\ \hline \end{tabular}

c) Calculate the cycle time, if the demand for the nurses is 60 patients per day as follows:

$$ \begin{aligned} \text { Flow rate } &=\frac{\text { Demand }}{\text { Available time (minutes) }} \\ &=\frac{60}{9 \times 60} \\ &=0.11 \text { patients per minute } \end{aligned} $$

$$ \begin{aligned} \text { Cycle time } &=\frac{1}{\text { Flow rate }} \\ &=\frac{1}{0.11} \\ &=9.09-9 \text { minutes per paitent } \end{aligned} $$

Therefore, the cycle time, if the demand for the nurses is 60 patients per day is 9 minutes per patient