• Title/Summary/Keyword: Waiting Times

Search Result 208, Processing Time 0.026 seconds

An IoT-Aware System for Managing Patients' Waiting Time Using Bluetooth Low-Energy Technology

  • Reham Alabduljabbar
    • International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
    • /
    • v.24 no.3
    • /
    • pp.83-92
    • /
    • 2024
  • It is a common observation that whenever any patient arrives at the front desk of a hospital, outpatient clinic, or other health-associated centers, they have to first queue up in a line and wait to fill in their registration form to get admitted. The long waiting time without any status updates is the most common complaint, worrying health officials. In this paper, UrNext, a location-aware mobile-based solution using Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) technology, is presented to solve the problem. Recently, a technology-oriented method has been gaining popularity in solving the healthcare sector's problems, namely the Internet of Things (IoT). The implementation of this solution could be explained through a simple example that when a patient arrives at a clinic for her consultation. There, instead of having to wait in long lines, she will be greeted automatically, receive a push notification telling her that she has been admitted along with an estimated waiting time for her consultation session. This will not only provide the patients with a sense of freedom but would also reduce uncertainty levels that are generally observed, thus saving both time and money. This work aimed to improve clinics' quality of services and organize queues and minimize waiting times in clinics, leading to patient comfortability and reducing the burden on nurses and receptionists. The results demonstrated that the presented system was successful in its performance and helped achieve high usability.

Exposure to Benzene Associated with Gasoline and Environmental Tobacco Smoke (휘발유 및 환경 담배 연기 관련 벤젠 노출)

  • 조완근;문경조
    • Journal of Environmental Science International
    • /
    • v.8 no.3
    • /
    • pp.319-323
    • /
    • 1999
  • This study was designed to evaluate the exposure to benzene by residents in neighborhoods near a major roadways, by persons waiting buses, and by drivers and service station attendants while refueling. It was confirmed that the outdoor air benzene concentrations near the major roadways were higher than those further away from the sources. However, neither the indoor air nor breath concentrations were different for two specified residential areas. Smoking was confirmed as an important factor for the indoor air benzene levels. Persons waiting buses, drivers and service station attendants were exposed to elevated benzene levels compared to even the residents in neighborhoods near a major roadways. The mean benzene concentration at bus stop was 2.7 to 6.9 times higher than the mean ambient air concentration. The mean benzene concentrations in the breathing zone of drivers and service station attendants were 95 to 160 and 120 to 202 times higher than the mean ambient air concentrations, respectively.

  • PDF

Suggestions on Time-saving Processes of Receiving Medicines at the Outpatient Pharmacy in a University Hospital (일개 대학병원의 투약대기시간 단축방안)

  • Yu, Mi Seon;Park, Hye Soon;Park, Hyoun Jung;Kim, Ji Hwa;Kim, Hee Jeoung;Kim, Sun Young
    • Quality Improvement in Health Care
    • /
    • v.5 no.1
    • /
    • pp.28-40
    • /
    • 1998
  • Background : Many patients have been frequently complaining that they have to spend couples of hours in hospital on visiting outpatient clinic. Among several steps, two major time consuming steps were waiting to see a doctor and/or waiting at pharmacy to get medicine. Therefore not only to provide the proper guidance for medication or counseling on health affairs but also to make waiting time short is very important for the better hospital services. The aim of this study is to validate several time-saving processes to reduce waiting time at outpatient pharmacy and its efficacy. Methods : We surveyed the time interval actually taken to receive medicine after issuing prescription by doctors, and analyzed the data on the bases of relevant or possible causative factors. Then following processes were given to reduce waiting time and resurveyed and compared both data to validate efficacy of those processes : 1. No work-off on Monday and Tuesday 2. Work hour shift to start 30 minutes earlier 3. Changeable work shift between outpatient pharmacy and ward pharmacy according to work load 4. Use of pre-made medicines prescribed more frequently by certain doctors at certain time 5. Cooperation with doctors to use set prescriptions. Results : Before the process, mean waiting time at pharmacy was 29.2 minutes and most time consuming period was from noon to 1 PM, 3 to 4 PM, 1 to 2 PM in order of frequency. Only 37.7 % of patients could get the medicine within 20 minutes. Three times of surveys after process showed mean waiting time at pharmacy were 18.1 minutes, 19.0 minutes, and 17.6 minutes, respectively. And 72.7 %, 81.3%, and 82.2% of patients could get the medicine within 20 minutes. Conclusion : The mean waiting time was markedly reduced with above mentioned processes which applied intradepartmently event hough with little cooperation from other department. Consequently, the complaints of patients were decreased with increasing the satisfaction degree. In conclusion, those suggestions were recommanded to improve the degree of satisfaction of patients.

  • PDF

The Study on Service Design Development for Pharmacy Users: Using Smart Phone Application

  • Lee, Dong-Min;Park, Hye-Jung;Lee, Dong-In
    • Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
    • /
    • v.31 no.1
    • /
    • pp.93-100
    • /
    • 2012
  • Objective: This study is to review the current state of services offered to pharmacy users, and develop a service design converging a prescription service and a smart phone application service in order to enhance patients' experience at pharmacies and home. Background: Under the new medical system; separation of prescribing and dispensing drugs, a doctor writes a prescription to their patients and patients have their prescription filled at the pharmacy. As the number of flue, allergy and atopy patients has increased, waiting lines have been longer at pharmacies. Besides, the current medical service system lacks of providing proper information on prescribed pills to patients. There are already services offered during waiting times such as offering free drinks, magazines or suggesting general drugs which you can buy without prescription, however they neither cover the current medical service's shorts nor shorten the waiting time. Method: I researched objective and perceived waiting times reduction methods, the current service status at pharmacies, and the government's policy direction in a medical service. Also, I observed a patient's journey from the hospital to pharmacy and then home. I examined the circumstance at pharmacies, patients' behaviors and their thoughts during their journey, and extracted three main goals to design a service in order to help patients have positive perception during the waiting time; (1) to reduce the perceived time by the way of visualizing time and offering readings about what patients consider necessary, (2) to educate patients what they are into and how to get through, (3) to establish trust among patients, doctors and pharmacists. Based on three goals, I designed a structure and a wireframe for a new service application of smart phones. Results: With a new service design for pharmacy users, users can track their medical record and visit the information about their current medical treatments anytime. Also the service helps patients build reliable relationships with doctors and pharmacists. Conclusion: Experience is not just an activity but series of multiple activities. The serving range of a medical service should not be determined by stakeholders but user's holistic experience. By approaching a service design with a holistic vision, it can enrich not only a temporary experience but also a whole life well being. Application: Since there are already many service applications advising patients about their illness and finding right doctors, this service design is focused on the experience from getting a prescription till feeling better. The next move is to combine those two parts medical services and design an integrated service application. As a prescription is going to be coded in numbers, we might consider to design an un-attended pharmacy which can shorten huge amount of time for filling prescriptions.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Work with the Remote System in PACS Room (PACS실에서 원격시스템을 이용한 업무의 효율성 평가)

  • Kim, Ji-Hye;Lee, Jong-Woong;Lee, Seung-Jin;Dong, Kyung-Rae
    • Korean Journal of Digital Imaging in Medicine
    • /
    • v.13 no.4
    • /
    • pp.171-175
    • /
    • 2011
  • Server and Pi view management, external image and internal image Copy Import business in PACS room is through the medical assistance. Import and Copy, and in particular the number of cases is increasing the number of import is a fast growing trend. Although the increase in workload With limited human resources to increase business efficiency so Remote system is using PACS room. This remote system will want to evaluate the effectiveness of using the service. Amount of data each 437.5 MB, Copy and Import time is to compare and evaluate sees by use 1 PC. 4 PC, 4 PC+ remote system. The use of the remote system before the January 2010 to June daily average waiting time and the use of the remote system after the January 2011 to June compared to a daily average patient waiting time, evaluate. Using the remote system in January 2011 to June Find out the average remote utilization. The biggest difference on the four copy and eight continued, Were performed two times faster by use 4 PC+ remote system than use 4 PC and four times faster than use 1 PC. Before using the remote system, the daily average wait time is 14.5 minutes after using the daily average 10.2 minutes, waiting time 30% of the existing waiting time was 4.3 minutes, to reduce. Using the remote system in January 2011 to June the average daily number of cases is 107 number and The number of remote and on average 35 cases with 32% in a day remote usage. The use of the remote system to Import, CD Copy and greatly increase the efficiency of their time could be. Hours due to efficiency could also reduce customer waiting time. As a result, the manpower and the use of a remote system over time to maximize efficiency in business hours, work was evaluated by.

  • PDF

Empirical Analysis on Comparison between Self-checkout and Regular Staffed-checkout lanes in a Poland Retail Store

  • Kwak, Jin Kyung
    • International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
    • /
    • v.8 no.1
    • /
    • pp.56-61
    • /
    • 2020
  • Customer satisfaction in retail stores are considerably affected by checkout services. Self-checkout counters have been installed in order to reduce waiting times at checkout in retail stores. However, it is uncertain whether the self-checkout lanes actually decrease the average waiting time of customers. Rather, there are some problems associated with self-checkout lanes such as theft or service failure due to technological problems. This study analyzes comparison between self-checkout and regular staffed-checkout lanes, based on the dataset collected from a retail store in Poland. As a result, we observe that the average transaction times were longer at the self-checkout lanes though fewer products were purchased than at the staffed-checkout lanes. In addition, the customers who buy more products tend to use self-checkouts less frequently. We also check that transaction times are proportional to the number of products customers purchase, and that both the time to scan one item and the fixed time related to checkout are significantly longer at the self-checkout counters. As there has been very few research on the effectiveness of self-checkouts, this study can be the first step to investigate managerial insights on checkout services in retail stores.

Performance Analysis of a Packet Voice Multiplexer Using the Overload Control Strategy by Bit Dropping (Bit-dropping에 의한 Overload Control 방식을 채용한 Packet Voice Multiplexer의 성능 분석에 관한 연구)

  • 우준석;은종관
    • The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
    • /
    • v.18 no.1
    • /
    • pp.110-122
    • /
    • 1993
  • When voice is transmitted through packet switching network, there needs a overload control, that is, a control for the congestion which lasts short periods and occurrs in local extents. In this thesis, we analyzed the performance of the statistical packet voice multiplexer using the overload control strategy by bit dropping. We assume that the voice is coded accordng to (4,2) embedded ADPCM and that the voice packet is generated and transmitted according to the procedures in the CCITT recomendation G. 764. For the performance analysis, we must model the superposed packet arrival process to the multiplexer as exactly as possible. It is well known that interarrival times of the packets are highly correlated and for this reason MMPP is more suited for the modelling in the viewpoint of accuracy. Hence the packet arrival process in modeled as MMPP and the matrix geometric method is used for the performance analysis. Performance analysis is similar to the MMPP IG II queueing system. But the overload control makes the service time distribution G dependent on system status or queue length in the multiplexer. Through the performance analysis we derived the probability generating function for the queue length and using this we derived the mean and standard deviation of the queue length and waiting time. The numerical results are verified through the simulation and the results show that the values embedded in the departure times and that in the arbitrary times are almost the same. Results also show bit dropping reduces the mean and the variation of the queue length and those of the waiting time.

  • PDF

A Study on Two-step Dispatching for Multi-function Transport Vehicle at Container Terminal (컨테이너터미널에서 다기능 이송차량의 2단계 배차 방안)

  • Choi, Yong-Seok;Kim, Woo-Sun
    • Journal of Navigation and Port Research
    • /
    • v.32 no.10
    • /
    • pp.829-835
    • /
    • 2008
  • The objective of this study is to present the two-step dispatching strategy for the purpose of the transport vehicle with multi-function used in container terminal. The two-step dispatching is a method to save the waiting time between transport vehicle and cranes using real time location control. The first step dispatching is to allocate the destination location based on the real time location information. The second step dispatching is to indicate the specific job such as loading, unloading, and pick-up based on the condition of working area. This two-step dispatching strategy decreases the waiting times of the stevedoring system and will contribute at a productivity improvement in container terminal.

A Study on the Analysis of Container Physical Distribution System -Pusan Port Oriented- (물류시스템 분석에 관한 연구 - 부산항을 중심으로 -)

  • Park, C.H.;Lee, C.Y.
    • Journal of Korean Port Research
    • /
    • v.5 no.2
    • /
    • pp.19-37
    • /
    • 1991
  • This work aims to : establish a model of the container physical distribution system of Pusan port comprising 4 sub-systems of a navigational system, on-dock cargo handling/transfer/storage system, off-dock CY system and an in-land transport system : examine the system regarding the cargo handling capability of the port and analyse the cost of the physical distribution system. The overall findings are as follows : Firstly in the navigational system, average tonnage of the ships visiting the Busan container terminal was 33,055 GRT in 1990. The distribution of the arrival intervals of the ships' arriving at BCTOC was exponential distribution of $Y=e^{-x/5.52}$ with 95% confidence, whereas that of the ships service time was Erlangian distribution(K=4) with 95% confidence, Ships' arrival and service pattern at the terminal, therefore, was Poisson Input Erlangian Service, and ships' average waiting times was 28.55 hours In this case 8berths were required for the arriving ships to wait less than one hour. Secondly an annual container through put that can be handled by the 9cranes at the terminal was found to be 683,000 TEU in case ships waiting time is one hour and 806,000 TEU in case ships waiting is 2 hours in-port transfer capability was 913,000 TEU when berth occupancy rate(9) was 0.5. This means that there was heavy congestion in the port when considering the fact that a total amount of 1,300,000 TEU was handled in the terminal in 1990. Thirdly when the cost of port congestion was not considered optimum cargo volume to be handled by a ship at a time was 235.7 VAN. When the ships' waiting time was set at 1 hour, optimum annual cargo handling capacity at the terminal was calculated to be 386,070 VAN(609,990 TEU), whereas when the ships' waiting time was set at 2 hours, it was calculated to be 467,738 VAN(739,027 TEU). Fourthly, when the cost of port congestion was considered optimum cargo volume to be handled by a ship at a time was 314.5 VAN. When the ships' waiting time was set at I hour optimum annual cargo handling capacity at the terminal was calculated to be 388.416(613.697 TEU), whereas when the ships' waiting time was set 2 hours, it was calculated to be 462,381 VAN(730,562 TEU).

  • PDF