The Simio Clinic and Urgent Care (SCUC) is an institution that provides an array of medical services including wellness check-ups, minor trauma aid, lab testing, and orthopedic care. This facility serves patients with unscheduled treatments and patients with scheduled primary care needs. Scheduled patients travel to the clinic for appointments while other patients arrive unplanned when they need medical attention. Unscheduled patients do not require emergency treatment, but they cannot wait days or weeks for an appointment.
The SCUC administration is planning to expand into a new facility and is requesting a team to assist in preparing for the construction and opening of the center. The administration wants to determine staffing levels and schedules to hire employees for the new location. They are also seeking guidance regarding the number and position of rooms for the layout. To acquire this information the team must review historical activity logs to account for patient arrival patterns, treatment times, and patient demographics.
The SCUC would like the team to provide staffing models assessing the tradeoffs between patient satisfaction and cost of operation. Patient satisfaction is gauged by metrics such as the time patients spend in the facility and how many patients leave the facility without being treated. The administration would like to sustain reasonable patient satisfaction levels but avoid overstaffing and empty treatment rooms which increase operating costs. Additionally, the administration is considering investing in new equipment but first would like to determine how it would affect key metrics.