Title: Observation of patient flow within the UQ small animal teaching hospital, patient wait times, teaching times, bottlenecks, and suggestions for improvement
Description: The Small Animal Veterinary Teaching Hospital of the University of Queensland(UQ-SAVTH) has a double mission of serving the community by providing outstanding animal care as well as teaching final-year veterinary students. Clinical teaching occurs throughout the process of patient management within the hospital and can affect patient flow. The main purposes of this observational study are:
- to analyse the timing and duration of clinical and teaching activities performed throughout the day
- to identify potential causes of bottlenecks
- to identify strategic changes that could improve workflow
The student can expect to:
- learn about workflow in a veterinary hospital and for future veterinary or technology students to acclimatise to the hospital operations ahead of their final year rotations
- be involved and learn about study design and actively perform data collection in the hospital (ethics already obtained)
- be involved and learn about data analysis and if interested in developing presentation skills to deliver a talk on the results of the study to the hospital staff
- The study will be based at Gatton and requires a dedicated student who is reliable and hardworking as well as proactive and who can work independently
Supervisor: Dr Erika Meler