Northwest General

Kelli Harper

BA2020

September 19, 2015

1. Discuss the pros and cons of using average demand to assess capacity requirements. Is this a reasonable approach for the ER? One of the pros would be that there has been stable population growth over the past ten years. Another pro would be that the population swells by 30% in the months of July, August, December, and March and April. That makes the peak periods six out of twelve months. The biggest con is that during peak season there is not enough room to treat the patient creating safety concerns. The con for me is that the capacity problem only occurs during the busy tourist season, so the average of the capacity does not reveal this problem, as the peak demands are averaged with the lower demands during the nontourist months. I do not feel that this is a reasonable approach because if she expands for the tourist season that still leaves six months with a lot of unused space thus making the expansion costly instead of profitable. She also can not present a clear case of her needs using average demand because of how the influx of patients is not consistent her numbers would be off, therefore not giving a clear cut example of how her needs need to be met.

2. Make a recommendation for Jen as to what she should do and the information that she should provide in her request. She should use the decision tree so that she can have structure to the series of decisions and a way to see the alternatives. Figure out what the expected value is. She should consider construction cost, insurance, parking, traffic, and local ordinances. She should include all data collected from all the other departments including the ER. There should be data collected daily weekly and monthly. The rise of the number of patients as well as the decline. She should consider sharing the new space with another department that needs more room and like the ER not on a regular basis. How many more employees that they would have to have and the...