Paediatric Orthopaedic Clinic at the Children’s Hospital at Western Ontario
The Case Analysis
Prepared By Group 5:
Chris Ocasio
Thien Do
Haley Bernardo
Warren JR Magee
Navia N Nipa
Arafat Z Chowdhury
Prepared for:
Brian Plummer
Professor, Operations Management
POM 651
Dated: October 10, 2013
Overview:
The Children’s Hospital of Western Ontario (CHWO) is located in London, Ontario,
Canada. The hospital provides specialized services to children, which acts as a part of a
larger group, London Health Sciences Center. CHWO is a large hospital which serves ten
counties, with 1.4 million residents, and 400,000 children. Their specialty services bring in
referrals from across Ontario, other neighboring provinces in Canada, and the United
States.
The Pediatric Orthopedic Clinic serves as one treatment center of CHWO that is managed
with the Division of Surgery. The Clinic is used by young patients who have suffered
severe or complex bone trauma. These children are referred to the clinic for further
examination and treatment. Patients from family doctors, walk-in clinics, and urgent care
are sent to the Orthopedic Clinic. Patients typically return for ongoing treatment as healing
progressed.
The clinic is open for three half day sessions per week. The rest of the time, the facilities
are used by other sub-specialties of surgery.
The process flow consists of:
•A patient’s arrival and submitting an internal referral form at the front desk while
their health insurance is verified.
•A patient then waiting in the reception area until an X-ray room is available then a
technician briefs the patient/parent on the procedure.
•A patient waiting to collect the X-ray image on film while a radiologist develops,
reviews, and annotates the image.
•A patient returning to the clinic with their X-ray image, handing the image over to
the registration desk, and waiting to be called into an examination room.
•A patient being examined by a surgeon or a senior resident student.
•A patient being discharged and possibly having another appointment scheduled.
Problems:
•The major problem that the clinic is facing is the issue of long wait times for
patients. Every step poses a bottleneck in the process flow especially during the
steps in the radiology department. Currently, a patient spends roughly two hours in
the clinic on average. Concerns arise about missed time from school for children
and missed time from work for the parents. The type of medical treatments this
clinic provides requires that 60% of the patients have multiple visits to the clinic.
