Increasing Patient Throughput and Scanner Efficiency with teamplay Solution

The Diagnostic Imaging Center at Dar Al-Shifa Hospital in Kuwait has adopted the Siemens Healthineers teamplay solution for radiology performance management, as it provided transparency in the radiology department that could not beobtained by using traditional methods. teamplay aggregates data from DICOM images generated by the modalities and turns it into information which allows to make informed decisions to increase productivity and efficiency.

Key Issues

The key issues behind this project are perceived inefficiencies in the current turnaround process that have not previously been evaluated; but now the teamplay performance management, provides us a transparent view of our radiology department to monitor quantities like imaging throughput, utilization of staff, rooms, andour department’s resources down to each device and procedure.

Start for Data collection

The project started in May 2019 where data collected from the two MRI scanners, MAGNETOM Skyra and MAGNETOM Aera showed that the changing time between two MRI cases takes 64 minutes, the average scan time is 23 minutes per exam, total exams per month is 861 on both the scanners with 1.90 exams per hour.

Summary of Findings

After analyzing the data collected from teamplay solution, it was found that:

• No significant average patient changing time differences between MRI rooms.

• The data from both MRI rooms show that there is a significant amount of non-value-added time between the cases within the current turnaround process.

• Cancellation/no show, patient changing, no scan scheduled on friday for both MRI rooms.

• On friday, only one MRI room is operational, and this has a high negative impact (less productivity).

Summary of Recommendations

teamplay solution allowed to make objective decisions to increase workflow efficiency.

• Increase the number of nurses assigned in each MRI room - one nurse assigned for each MRI room.

• Organize the materials needed by creating electronic documentation in Arabic and English and send this by SMS link to patient mobile for preparation

• Improve communication skills of the appointment officer especially with elderly patients by creating education videos for patient preparation.

• Investigate the layout of each individual room in order to optimize the new process steps and reduce walking distances - thus increasing efficiency.

• Optimize the scheduling practices on Friday to reduce scheduling delays.