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Fig. 1 | BMC Health Services Research

Fig. 1

From: An exploratory assessment of the impact of a novel risk assessment test on breast cancer clinic waiting times and workflow: a discrete event simulation model

Fig. 1

Model figure for the standard care (no primary care testing) pathway (GP = general practitioner; TWW = two week wait; MDT = multi-disciplinary team). Patients with suspected breast cancer enter the model at the GP arrivals point (depicted as a green arrow pointing towards the ‘GP’ activity). Individual patients are then tracked through the model. The yellow box captures the activities of the breast cancer clinic (i.e. initial assessment; mammogram; ultrasound and biopsy), which each depend the availability of rooms and staff. Patients are required to wait in the activity queues until such a time as an available room and required staff members are available. At the end of each scheduled clinic, any patients left in the clinic activity queues are routed back around to the ‘Clinic returns’ activity and will be required to attend a future clinic to finish their course of diagnostics. Once an individual’s clinic activities have been completed, the patient receives a diagnosis of cancer or no cancer, and exits the model at the associated exit point

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