CHAPTER 8 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. List six to eight things you need to consider when designing a health care facility.

2. Provide an example of a health care facility you have been in recently whose design could be improved, and explain how it could be improved.

3. In the process of creating a Muther diagram, what are some key questions to consider? Who should be asked these questions?

4. For a health care setting in which you have worked (or any one with which you are familiar), create a Muther diagram for the facility.

5. Consider the discussion of office layout in the chapter. Sketch an optimal design of your working space (office) at home. Clearly indicate placement of different tools, equipment, and so on that you use.

6. When determining which layout is better (Figure 8.2 or Figure 8.3), what would you factor into your decision? What other aspects of the hospital’s delivery of care should you factor in?

7. Create a measurable and meaningful criterion to use in evaluating the design of a health care facility. Clearly indicate the information that would be needed to be able to compare two different designs.

8. Use Solver to find the optimal solution to the given integer programming problem.
Consider the same operating room discussed in the Solver example in the chapter. Suppose that instead of maximizing profit from surgeries, our objective is to minimize the cost incurred due to surgeries. As before, we denote the number of major surgeries scheduled in a week using decision variable s1, the number of minor surgeries scheduled in a week using decision variable s2, and the number of elective surgeries scheduled in a week using decision variable s3.

The relevant data for each type of surgery is:

Surgery Type Cost Operating Room Time Labor Hours
Major (s1) $5,500 4 hours 15
Minor (s2) $3,000 0.5 hour 10
Elective (s3) $4,000 2 hours 12

In addition, for this problem we will assume the facility has only one operating room, which is available 60 hours per week, and the facility has a total of 500 labor hours a week that can be devoted to surgeries.
Prior to using Solver, you may want to formulate your problem (i.e., clearly identify decision variables, objective function, and constraints).