Ops 571 - Bottleneck in a Process

Bottleneck in a Process

OPS/571

December 20, 2010

Professor David Garcia

Bottleneck in a Process

Bottlenecking is a phase in a process that can cause the entire process to slow down, limit its capacity of resources and confines throughput. During my week in review I recognized the main area in my flow chart in which bottlenecking occurred within the application process was the candidate's inability to meet all the application requirements. I held at minimum two interviews each day and in summation all 10 of the interviewees were missing the two most important parts of the application requirements, a recent physical examination and references. These two key components are significant because they are necessary to satisfy both the organizations' and the state requirements for health care provider employment.

The constraint for my organization at present is attempting to obtain reference checks and waiting for these candidates to submit the physicals. As a result of the constraint of this bottleneck we could not schedule an orientation, initiate a "ready to go" status to our referral sources to start accepting cases, and we were forced to delay our scheduled Department of Health survey for Medicare/Medicaid Certification. This bottlenecking is costing the owners a significant amount of money because without certification we cannot service patients, which equals to no revenue. At the present time the additional issues we face are that we continue to have an influx of good candidates but very few have a complete file. Without a complete file they cannot partake in any scheduled orientation.

To combat this bottlenecking I have changed a few of the steps depicted in the initial process of the flow