One hospital is evaluating its Emergency Department capacity so it knows how to expand as the county population grows. The hospital has the following information:
Resource Number
Nurses 10
Physicians 5
X-ray Technicians 6
Examination rooms 10
Trauma bays 5
On average, nurses need to spend 30 minutes with each patient that comes in. Additionally, each physician can serve the average of 3 patients each hour. Each technician can X-ray up to 4 patients per hour. Unfortunately, 30% of all patients that come into the ED are trauma victims that need to be placed in a trauma bay. The other 70% of the patients go into normal examination rooms. Each trauma patient spends an average of 25 minutes in a trauma bay before leaving the ED (usually then being admitted to the main part of the hospital), whereas non-trauma patients spend an average of 30 minutes in an examination room before leaving the ED. If the hospital wants to expand capacity, each resource must be added in whole unit increments. (Display all of your answers in one decimal place).
What is the system capacity in patient arrivals per hour?
a) 15
b) 20
c) 22
How can the ED increase its capacity to be able to serve 24 patients per hour? (circle all that apply and fill in the corresponding blank for each circled item)
a) Increase number of Nurses to ______
b) Increase number of Physicians to ______
c) Increase number of X-ray Technicians to ______
d) Increase number of Examination Rooms to ______
e) Increase number of Trauma Bays to ______