Biomedical subjects

S D Lapierre

Publications and source records attributed to S D Lapierre.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Analysis of a territorial approach to the delivery of nursing home care services based on historical data.

We analyze a territorial approach to deliver nursing homecare services to a territory public health. We present the case of the CSSS assigned to Côte-des-Neiges, Métro center and Parc Extension, specifically the case of the Côte-des-Neiges site (CLSC CDN), where a territorial approach is used since 1980. We first give an historical comparison of patient visits delivered in 1998-1999 and in 2002-2003. We follow with an in-depth analysis of the home services delivered in 2002-2003 to determine whether or not the territorial approach can well support the changing needs of the population. We conclude that the territorial approach to deliver homecare nursing services does not sufficiently support fluctuations in population needs for services. Not only is it difficult to predict these fluctuations, but it is difficult to accurately quantify the true needs for services since the availability of nursing services tends to determine the services actually delivered. In sectors of the territory where resources are more scarce (based on previous population needs analyses) or demand for services is greater, the result is work overload for the nursing staff. In addition, this results in service delivery inequities across the entire territory. Therefore, a more dynamic assignment of clients to the nurses based on each nurse's work load and case load rather than based on the geographic location of clients is worth the extra administrative time in case assignment to ensure a more equitable case load attribution between nurses as well as less inequities between clients in terms of service delivery considering their needs.

Catchment Area, Health↗

PubMed2001

Scheduling emergency room physicians.

This paper introduces the problem of scheduling emergency room physicians. We interviewed physicians from six hospitals in the greater Montreal, Canada area, in order to understand the emergency room scheduling problem. Extracting the real scheduling problem is difficult because physician working conditions are based on informal mutual cooperation which is usually not documented. We present the characteristics of the scheduling problem and the scheduling techniques currently used in the six emergency rooms we analyzed. Using the scheduling problems of Charles-Lemoyne Hospital and the Jewish General Hospital, we show how to modify a hospital's existing scheduling rules to develop techniques which produce better schedules and reduce the time needed to build them.

Efficiency, Organizational↗

PubMed1999

Improving on-time performance in health care organizations: a case study.

In this paper, we propose a strategy to build a measurement system that helps improve on-time performance in health care organizations. We analyze the measurement system for monitoring the performance of daily start times of first surgeries in a U.S. hospital. Although surgeons appear to be the main cause of delay, efforts to improve their on-time performance alone are not sufficient to improve on-time performance for first surgeries. Therefore, working on the main source of delay to improve performance, as the Pareto principle suggests, does not always work in the health care context. Rather, we found that ameliorating the hospital's overall on-time performance achieves the desired result of improving surgeons' performance through a snowball effect (a self-reinforcing effect) and, consequently, the on-time performance for first surgeries also improves.

Appointments and Schedules↗

PubMed1999

The public health care planning problem: a case study using geographic information systems.

We address the problem of designing new networks for the delivery of public health care services in the United States. The paper is based on a case study design conducted with the Fulton County Health Department (Atlanta, GA). The research contribution this paper makes is twofold. First, it presents a planning methodology to deliver health care services through a mix of fixed health centers, satellite facilities, and mobile facilities. Second, it gives insights on how to use geographic information systems to design new health care service networks.

Community Networks↗