Working with Capacity Limitations: Operations Management in Critical Care

16 Pages Posted: 21 Apr 2011

See all articles by Christian Terwiesch

Christian Terwiesch

University of Pennsylvania - Operations & Information Management Department

Diwas Singh KC

Emory University - Goizueta Business School

Jeremy M. Kahn

University of Pittsburgh - School of Medicine

Date Written: April 19, 2011

Abstract

As your hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) director you are approached by the hospital’s administration to help solve ongoing problems with ICU throughput. The ICU seems to be full all the time, and trauma patients in the emergency department sometimes wait up to 24 hours before receiving a bed. At the same time, the cardiac surgeons were forced to canceled several elective coronary-artery bypass graft cases because there was not a bed available for post-operative recovery. The hospital administrators ask if you can decrease your ICU length of stay, and wonder if they should build more ICU beds instead. For help in understanding and optimizing your ICU’s throughput, you seek out the operations management researchers at your university.

Keywords: Patient Flow, Critical Care, Capacity Mangement

Suggested Citation

Terwiesch, Christian and KC, Diwas Singh and Kahn, Jeremy M., Working with Capacity Limitations: Operations Management in Critical Care (April 19, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1815532 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1815532

Christian Terwiesch

University of Pennsylvania - Operations & Information Management Department ( email )

Philadelphia, PA 19104
United States

Diwas Singh KC (Contact Author)

Emory University - Goizueta Business School ( email )

1300 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30322-2722
United States

Jeremy M. Kahn

University of Pittsburgh - School of Medicine ( email )

200 Meyran Avenue
Suite 200
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
222
Abstract Views
1,847
Rank
249,561
PlumX Metrics