How can I compute the distance a nurse travels by activity?

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question

Tee Hiett asked May 27 2018 at 8:57 PM Cliff King commented Mar 23 2019 at 1:36 AM

How can I compute the distance a nurse travels by activity?

I can get the total distance each nurse travels each day and I would like to identify the distance traveled by nursing activities. For example, how far does a nurse walk escorting patients to beds? And, how far does a nurse walk getting medications for patients?

Thanks,

Tee

Software Version:

FlexSim HC 5.3.4

healthcare distance traveled

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Answer 1 · 2018-05-31T00:21:00Z

Cliff King answered May 31 2018 at 12:21 AM Tee Hiett commented Jun 11 2018 at 4:28 PM

Tee,

In the attached model, I show the standard Distance Traveled dashboard chart for Resources, and a User-Defined dashboard chart that displays three columns I defined in a custom Data Collector. The "Distance Traveled" pick list option for defining a column in a Data Collector that you referenced in your earlier comment only works for Resources (i.e. an individual staff member), so I needed to revise the pick list option to capture the total distance traveled for all active members of a user specified group.

Let me know if you have any questions or need something explained in the model.

walkingdistanceexamplemodel.fsm

walkingdistanceexamplemodel.fsm (127.2 KiB)

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Tee Hiett commented · May 31 2018 at 2:27 PM

Thanks, Cliff,

Would you explain the Recording Event option Resource Becomes Available?

How can I put this new option into the Data Collectors?

Tee

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Cliff King Tee Hiett commented · May 31 2018 at 4:48 PM

With that option, the Data Collector will record an entry for each of the three columns I've defined every time an resource (i.e. staff member) becomes available or in other words, finishes a task. This is a good time to record the distance traveled of staff because that is the same time their total distance traveled variable is updated with their most current travel task.

There is a note in the pick list option for the column values that indicates which recording events can be used for recording distance traveled. The "Resource Becomes Available" option may be an overkill and slow the model run down a bit. If all you want to know is the total distance traveled by the staff at the end of each replication run as part of an experiment, then use the "End of Experiment Replication" because it will not create as many recording events and therefore be much faster.

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Tee Hiett commented · Jun 01 2018 at 7:03 PM

Cliff,
when I run your model, I get values for the data collector which are approximately twice that of the Standard Chart.

???

Thanks,

Tee

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bmi6a.png (12.4 KiB)

Cliff King Tee Hiett commented · Jun 01 2018 at 7:35 PM

The number next to the staff group name in the standard chart is reporting the average total walking distance for its members The numbers in the User-defined chart is summing up the walking distance for all members of the group and reporting the total.

p.s. 1350.57 + 1625.30 won't equal 2962.01 exactly because the walking distance of the staff using the data collector is not recorded until the staff finishes its current (i..e final) task, but the numbers will be close.

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2018-06-01-13-31-48.png (25.1 KiB)

Tee Hiett Cliff King commented · Jun 08 2018 at 1:50 PM

Cliff,

Thanks for the help. The command worked really helped us answer information we needed. Now is there an easy way to put the drop the command into a model and have the option appear in the pick list?

Tee

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Answer 2 · 2018-05-30T11:56:32Z

Tee Hiett answered May 30 2018 at 11:56 AM Tee Hiett commented May 30 2018 at 6:23 PM

I can get the time a nurse travels by activity by using milestones and converting the time to distance. Now I would like to get the total distance traveled by a group of nurses.

Shouldn’t this data collector would give me the distance traveled in meters by all of the Pod 1 nurses?

Thanks,

Tee

ogxve.png (32.2 KiB)

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Cliff King commented · May 30 2018 at 2:22 PM

That's a good idea. As for getting the distance traveled by a group of nurses, why not use the standard dashboard for that?

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Tee Hiett Cliff King commented · May 30 2018 at 2:38 PM

Cliff,

I am using the standard dashboard for Max, Min, and Avg. I also am trying to get the overall total distance and the total distance by Pod. Ideas, suggestions.

BTW, I cannot get the Data Collector to collect time on Pod1_RNs to work.

Tee

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Cliff King Tee Hiett commented · May 30 2018 at 4:07 PM

The standard Distance Travel dashboard reports the total distance traveled for individual members of a primary group. The number reported for the group itself is the average total distance of its members. You aren't getting the "Aggregate Replication Value" Minimum, Maximum and Average mixed up with the min, max and average of the metric itself are you?

When I get some time today, I will put a sample model together for you to show how to go about getting the distance traveled of groups other than a primary group if you need it.

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Answer 3 · 2018-05-29T16:47:27Z

Cliff King answered May 29 2018 at 4:47 PM Cliff King edited May 29 2018 at 7:04 PM

There is not a standard report that can give you staff travel distance by activity, so you would need to figure out a way to capture that information on your own. There are three different approaches a modeler can take to capture their own data: 1) use the Data Collector tool, 2) define Custom Fields in the Output Raw Data Settings window or 3) use triggers to write data to either an external csv file, or an internal Global Table.

The particular metric you are interested in capturing (i.e. nurse travel distance categorized by nursing activity) would be somewhat challenging depending upon how your model has been designed. Will you always know the reason for a nurse traveling in your model? Does your model have a mix of Global Processes, Patient Tracks, and Item Processing tasks? You need to keep in mind that staff sometimes travel back to their home base when there is nothing for them to do, so which activity should that travel distance be assigned to. Maybe I'm over complicating things. It's possible you could get what you need by simply recording the nurse's total cumulative travel distance at the end of each activity step plus recording the activity that just finished?? Let me know a few more details and I'd be happy to help you get a report that will hopefully give you what you are looking for!

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