OREM 4395 – Senior Design Archive

Client: Los Barrios Unidos Community Clinic
Team: Shorjoe Bhattacharya and Harvey Hauw
Faculty Advisors:  Drs. Barr, Bing         Year: 2017
Documents: Presentation, Report

Los Barrios Unidos Community Clinic, located in West Dallas, offers services in many different healthcare areas including pediatric care, behavioral health, and obstetrics. The focus of this project was in the obstetrics department, at which patient satisfaction was dropping due to long wait times leading to long appointment durations.

Our team was tasked with collecting time and motion data, mapping out current workflows of the clinic, running a simulation model, and analyzing the results. We collected data with a simple yet effective time and motion study where we asked the individual patients to log their times as they went station to station in the clinic. We also learned the workflows and layout of the clinic by talking to staff members at the location. This was data was used in a computer simulation model of the Obstetrics wing, developed using “MedModel” (specialty healthcare facilities simulation software). The simulation results revealed ways to reduce patient wait times to improve the patient experience at LBUCC.

The stories of three Senior Design projects from the clients’ point of view, including North Texas Food Bank, Texas Department of Transportation, and Southwest Airlines:

Client: Methodist Dallas Medical Center
Team: Kyle Chester, Kristin Evanto, and Emily Gray
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Barr
Year: 2010
Documents: Final Report, Presentation

A “hub” of activity at MDMC is the Outpatient Services department. Outpatient Services exists to serve the needs of physicians and surgeons alike with routine x-rays, blood draws to test for Tuberculosis or other ailments, or diagnostics to assess patient health. Many patients who come to Outpatient Services are preparing for surgery and thus need to undergo preliminary screens such as blood draws and EKGs.

The focus of this project is the observation and analysis of the administrative and technical operations within the laboratory component of Outpatient Services. Outpatient Services aims to reduce its patient wait times throughout the entire duration of a patient’s stay in Outpatient Services. Management has expressed a desire to reduce patient wait times such that 95% of all patients wait less than 15 minutes for the Outpatient laboratory department. Read more…