In order to cope with the current pressure of demand, there is an increasing need for efficiency within the Dutch medical sector. It is one of the biggest issues in the current health-care system. The decreasing presence of medical professionals, combined with lower financial compensation by insurance companies, all require more efficient use of the current resources.
A descriptive data-analysis is performed, in order to evaluate the efficiency of the resource planning within the MDL department of a Dutch hospital.
This care-department, providing care for problems related to the digestive system, is divided into the outpatient services and the endoscopy. From a patient perspective, he/she talks to the doctor within the outpatient services and undergoes any investigation or treatment in the endoscopy sub-department.
Initially, it became clear that department was structured around its specialists, nurses and endoscopy rooms. On a tactical level, the main planning goal of the department was to hit the yearly production agreements which are made with the Dutch insurance companies.
Within the outpatient services sub-department, the enormous demand for MDL-health-care is currently not handled in an efficient way. While the sub-department is under-producing in order to hit the yearly production agreements, the waiting time for a patient to enter the care-path is far above the set norms. One could conclude that the efficiency of the resource planning is worse than the required level.
With respect to the current production agreements, the endoscopy is performing significantly efficient. The resources like the endoscopy rooms have space for future growth. However, this is currently not needed. It is expected that the growing amount of waiting patients will eventually affect the waiting times.