Authors:
Gustavo Marísio Bacelar-Silva
and
Pedro Pereira Rodrigues
Affiliation:
Center for Research in Health Technologies and Information Systems and University of Porto, Portugal
Keyword(s):
Theory of constraints, Buffer management, Patient flow, Health care process, Hospital performance.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Biomedical Engineering
;
Decision Support Systems
;
Design and Development Methodologies for Healthcare IT
;
Health Information Systems
;
Healthcare Management Systems
Abstract:
Health care systems around the world are under pressure, the costs are high and rising, and the population is growing and ageing. Health information technology is expected to help improving the health care processes capacity. The aim of this work is to analyze the benefits of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) buffer management implementation in the health care environment concerning the improvement in the patient flow and its management. A literature review was conducted, with an automated search on four databases to identify relevant published articles, written in English language between 2000 and 2010, about the TOC buffer management applied to the health care patient flow. Only three relevant articles were included. The analysis was based on the measurements of the implementations realized in seven different hospitals and for three different purposes: Accident & Emergency department (A&E), admissions and discharge. A statistical analysis conducted in the A&E and admissions post-impl
ementation results demonstrated a significant improvement achieved. Four management control functions improvements were also obtained: prioritize, expedite, escalate and improve. Although few papers were available, TOC buffer management appears to be a good solution to improve performance and management in health care.
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