Reducing MRI access times by tackling the appointment-scheduling strategy.

Background: High access times for MRI facilities have a negative impact on quality of care and patient service. Since these resources are both scarce and expensive, better utilising the capacity is the most economical way of reducing these access times. As a rule, patient appointments are not scheduled efficiently.

Applying the variety reduction principle to management of ancillary services.

Background: As central diagnostic facilities, computer tomography (CT) scans appear to be bottlenecks in many patient-care processes. This study describes a case study concerning redesign of a CT scan department in the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Purposes: The aim was to decrease access time for the CT-scan and simultaneously increase utilization level.