HI305 Unit 3 Workload Analysis Example

41,600 Pages a Week Against 168 Hours: A Unit 3 Workload Analysis Counting What Reaches a Document Imaging Team, the Time Each Step Takes and Why the Queue Can Only Grow

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

HI305: Management of Health Information

Unit 3 Workload Analysis

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The hospital, the counts and the timings are composite; the method and sources cited are real.

Purpose and Method

The supervisor wanted to know whether the growing scanning backlog came from too much work, too few hours or both. For eight weeks, each batch of discharged patients' loose paper was logged on arrival with its source unit and page count. A separate two-week time study recorded how long each step took for a sample of batches. The analysis then compares the work arriving with the hours available, using one week as the unit, because the department schedules by the week, an approach standard in health information management texts (Oachs & Watters, 2020). Queue theory states that the backlog grows whenever arrivals exceed the rate at which work is completed, and the size of the gap sets the speed of the growth (Little, 1961).

What Arrives

Over eight weeks, arrivals averaged 41,600 pages a week, with a low of 37,900 and a high of 45,200. Inpatient units sent about 31,000 pages a week, which matched the previous year. Two sources were new. The cardiac rehabilitation clinic, which moved under the hospital's record in the spring, sent about 5,200 pages a week of exercise logs and outside records. The emergency department's new practice of printing and signing a discharge checklist added about 5,400. Together the two new sources account for roughly a quarter of the volume.

How Long the Work Takes

The time study measured four steps. Preparation, which includes removing staples, repairing pages and sorting by encounter, averaged 7.2 seconds a page. Scanning averaged 2.4 seconds a page, since the scanners are fast once paper is ready. Indexing averaged 4.8 seconds a page, with barcoded cover sheets taking about half as long as documents indexed by hand. Quality review and correction added about 1.8 seconds a page across the batch. The total is 16.2 seconds a page. Multiplying by 41,600 pages gives about 674,000 seconds, or about 187 hours a week. Preparation takes three times as long as scanning. Any plan that buys a faster scanner without touching the paper before it reaches the scanner will barely move the backlog.

Hours Available

The team has five full-time specialists working 40 paid hours each, or 200 hours. Not all paid time is productive. The time study recorded meetings, training, breaks beyond scheduled ones and equipment downtime, which together took about 16 percent of paid time. Productive hours are therefore about 168 a week. When one specialist is absent, which happened in five of the eight weeks for at least one day, available hours fall further.

The Gap

Each week the work requires about 187 hours and the team supplies about 168. The difference of 19 hours equals roughly 4,200 pages left at the end of every week. Over six weeks, that adds about 25,000 pages to the queue, which at the team's current output is a little more than four days of work. Together with the absences, it explains why the backlog grew from two days to nine. No change in effort accounts for the gap: the team's pages per productive hour held steady across the eight weeks, at about 222.

What the Numbers Do Not Show

The analysis assumes the time study's sample represents all work. The sample covered 64 batches across both shifts, but very large outside records, such as a 400-page transfer packet, were rare in the sample and take longer per page to prepare. The analysis also does not measure quality; a team that falls behind may also be making more indexing errors, and the quality analyst's next weekly review should check. Finally, it does not show whether the new paper is necessary. The emergency department checklist could be signed electronically, and the cardiac rehabilitation logs could be entered at the clinic. A workload analysis tells a manager how much work there is; it does not decide whether all of it should exist, a distinction management texts in the field draw clearly (McWay, 2020).

Why Counting Mattered

Before the count, the department explained the backlog in three different ways depending on who was asked. The director thought a scanner had been unreliable. The specialists thought the evening shift was short. The supervisor suspected that physicians were sending more outside records. The eight weeks of arrival logs tested each idea. Scanner downtime totaled under three hours across the period. The evening shift was short only on days when someone was absent, which the hours section already counts. Outside records had risen, but only at the cardiac rehabilitation clinic. Counting turned three opinions into one finding the whole department could see.

Options the Analysis Supports

Three options follow from the numbers. The department could add about half of one full-time position, which covers the gap but not absences. It could reduce preparation time, for example by asking units to send paper unstapled and sorted, which the time study suggests could save about two seconds a page. Or it could stop paper at the source by asking the two new sources to document electronically. The supervisor will price these in the budget worksheet, but the analysis already shows that the third option removes a quarter of the volume, more than either of the first two.

References

Little, J. D. C. (1961). A proof for the queuing formula: L = λW. Operations Research, 9(3), 383-387. https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.9.3.383

McWay, D. C. (2020). Today's health information management: An integrated approach (3rd ed.). Cengage Learning.

Oachs, P. K., & Watters, A. L. (Eds.). (2020). Health information management: Concepts, principles, and practice (6th ed.). AHIMA Press.