Question

1. The School of Dentistry at Penn provides general dental care to residents of Philadelphia on a walk-in basis. Upon arrival, customers first provide health-relevant information such as personal health records and insurance provider to a receptionist who enters the information into the computer system for the dentist to see. A dental assistant then takes an X-ray of the patient. A dentist then performs the checkup and discusses any issues with the patient. Depending on the day, patients might have to wait at any of these resources. This concludes the process. Draw a process flow diagram of this process.

It takes a dentist 20 minutes to see one patient. What is the capacity of the dentist expressed in patients per hour?

Answer 1

Solution:

From the given information, the process flow diagram can be drawn as below:

Now,

Processing time for one patient by a dentist = 20 minutes per patient

Capacity of the dentist is calculated as;

Capacity or Number of patients processed by a dentist in 1 hour = 60 minutes / Time taken to process 1 patient

(1 hour = 60 minutes)

Capacity of dentist = 60 minutes / 20 minutes

Capacity of dentist = 3 patients per hour