Transcript Q-ing and U Queueing theory is your business! Andrew Quanbeck, MS NIATx 200 Scientific Manager STAR-SI Data Coordinator www.NIATx.net Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions.

Q-ing and U
Queueing theory is your business!
Andrew Quanbeck, MS
NIATx 200 Scientific Manager
STAR-SI Data Coordinator
www.NIATx.net
Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
Why should I care?
• If you have a phone at your office, this applies to
you!
• Do you schedule intake appointments or “slots”?
www.NIATx.net
Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
Enter queueing theory
• What is a “queue?”
• Historical roots
• Some basics
• Arrival rate
• Service rate
• Does queueing = rationing?
www.NIATx.net
Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
What is this all about?
• “Things happen in threes”
• “When it rains, it pours”
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Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
The world is a random place
• Like it or not, we live in a random world
• Human beings have an innate urge to
superimpose patterns where they don’t
really exist (e.g., lottery numbers, coin
flips, stock market, etc.)
• We like schedules, order, and routine
• Wouldn’t it be nice if it rained exactly ¼”
every night at 11 pm and then stopped?
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Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
Demonstration
• Imagine you are starting up a program
• Based on sound market research, you
expect 25 requests for service per month
• In a given month with roughly 25 work
days, that means an average of one intake
request per day
• Implication: set aside one intake “slot”
each morning, Monday-Friday
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Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
Demonstration (continued)
• This approach is:
– Logical
– Very common in the field
– DOOMED
• What REALLY happens?
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Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
Implications
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Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
The inevitable results of “slot”
systems…
• Waiting time ebbs and flows, but on
average grows infinitely (a fixed system
can never catch up)
• No-shows
• Poor efficiency
• Financial distress
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Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
Takeaways
• No appointments for intake processes! Think
people, not “slots”
• The more scheduling control you try to exert, the
more out of control things will get
• Make functional roles as interchangeable as
possible through cross-training
• Serving customers must be staff’s #1 priority at
all times
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Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
Don’t “blame it on the rain!”
• Understanding the
true nature of your
business is the key
to organizational
survival!
• Don’t let bad
processes put you
out of business
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Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
So much for theory- how about
reality?
• www.niatx.net – click on “Success Stories”
then “Business Case Series”
• Three agencies that went to walk-ins:
– Acadia Hospital
– Central New York Services
– Southwest Florida Addiction Services
• What happened?
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Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation
Q&A
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Who has done/tried walk-in intakes?
How did you get started?
What issues did you face?
What were the results?
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Reduce Waiting & No-Shows  Increase Admissions & Continuation