A triage system has been proposed for the emergency room. On average 50 patients per hour arrive. The emergency room uses a triage system. First, patients who are entering must stand in line to register, then they are registered. After registration they are quickly examined by a nurse practitioner who classifies them as needing only a Simple Prescription or as Potential Admissions to the hospital. Those classified as Simple Prescriptions are moved to one section of the emergency room and those classified as Potential Admissions are taken to another section of the emergency area. This triage exam including the decision time takes 3 minutes.
Statistics show that on average, 20 patients are waiting to register; 5 patients are waiting to be seen by the triage nurse; the actual registration takes 2 minutes per patient; the triage exam takes 3 minutes a patient; the Simple Prescription area has on average, 15 patients waiting to be seen by a doctor; the Potential Admissions area has 1 patient waiting to be seen by a doctor; each patient seen in the Simple Prescription area takes 5 minutes of a doctor’s time; each patient seen in the Potential Admissions area takes 30 minutes of a doctor's time; and 90% of all patients are Simple Prescriptions and the triage nurse is 100% accurate.
1. Draw the process flow and explicitly show the decisions and the flows on each path after the decisions. (You may submit this in either Word or Excel)
2. On average, how long will a Potential Admission stay in the ER from when they first get into line to register, until they are through with the doctor examination?
3. How long, on average, will a patient stay in the ER?