In 2012, driven by the need for greater effectiveness and efficiency in all mission areas to generate affordable, high-quality health professionals, clinical care and research, the University of Texas Health Institution issued a RFP to solicit system-wide innovative efforts to streamline patient flow processes and improve patient care quality outcomes.
Dr. Thomas Chen, research professor and undergraduate academic advisor in the industrial engineering department at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, teamed up with Drs. Chathampally, Okafor and Miller of the University of Texas Health Science Center, and Dr. Bard of the Cockrell School of Engineering at University of Texas at Austin. Together, the team submitted a proposal, titled “Improving Patient Flow and Resource Utilization in the Emergency Department” for the RFP, and was granted for a three-year project.
The project started in June 2012 and supported the research of two IE students under the supervision of Dr. Chen. The research topics during first year of this project include implementation of DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improvement, Control) methodology of Six Sigma for process improvement of Emergency Department (ED) operations, voice of patient and voice of provider survey, and voice recognition based documentation for medical records.
The project is now in its second year and the research topics include discrete and agent-based computer simulation and testing procedure optimization at the ED.