Radiotherapy service improvement: Simulation study

Abstract

Radiotherapy service has seen a spur of interest in the health care system. Many cancer centers aim to develop and enhance radiotherapy service to support the increasing demand. Because Thailand is a developing country, some cancer centers still have limited resources, both staff and machinery, while the number of cancer patients in Thailand has increased every year. To enhance the operational efficiency of radiotherapy service, this research aims to propose an integrated simulation approach and theory of constraints (TOC) approach for increasing radiotherapy service capability in Thailand. As simulation and TOC were applied in the case study, the real bottlenecks were identified in each treatment room. Considering four treatment rooms, only two rooms were selected for improvement (Room 2 and Room 3) after the simulation. The eight proposed solutions concentrated on improving both human- and machine-related bottlenecks. The simulation experiments were conducted to evaluate each solution. The results presented the best solution as adding one technician to Room 3 and replacing the radiation machine in Room 2 with the same machine as in Room 3. With this solution, the number of patients served was increased by 12.32% from the current system. As for the investment needed, the benefit-cost ratio and payback period were calculated as 1.89 and 2.80 years, respectively, for this solution.