1
CASE STUDY
Massachusetts General Hospital's Pre-Admission
Testing Area (PATA)
MIS 373: Basic Operations Management
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• After this lecture, students will be able to
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Explain the challenges in PATA
Identify the service operations process in PATA
Outline the capacity in each of the tasks in PATA
Identify the bottleneck in PATA’s service operations process
Provide solutions that could solve/mitigate the challenges in PATA
MIS 373: Basic Operations Management
2
ARRANGEMENT
1. Video about the case
2. Form discussion groups
• Find your own partners; ideally 3 students in a group
3. Questions to be discussed (on next slide)
4. Read the case again (10 minutes)
• This time, focus on the parts related to the prompt questions
5. In group discussion (30 minutes)
• Record your responses to those questions
• Keep track of your thought processes
• Please turn in your discussion notes at the end of the class
6. Open class discussion (50 minutes)
• Focus on the prompt questions
7. Wrap up with lesson learned and connect with larger operations issues
MIS 373: Basic Operations Management
3
QUESTIONS
1. What is the mission of PATA?
2. Provide an overview regarding the challenges faced by PATA
3. Why it is important for MGH to improve its PATA?
4. Who are the key stakeholders involved in PATA’s current operations?
5. What are the perspectives of the key stakeholders on PATA’s current
operational performance?
6. Draw a process flow diagram of the PATA patient visit process
7. In the flow chart, label the average time required to complete each task
8. In the flow chart, determine the hourly capacity of each station; that is,
the number of patients each station can handle in an hour
9. Based on the above capacity information, can you identify the
bottleneck?
10. What changes would you recommend to improve PATA?
MIS 373: Basic Operations Management
4