Improving patient flow at hospital emergency services — A simulation study

In recent years, growth in the demand for emergency medical services has raised concerns about improving patient flow via operational techniques and strategies. Health care delivery is a very special service process involving complex human activities and real time decision making. Especially, emergency departments (EDs), as the gateway and the major source of outpatients in hospitals, have experienced yearly increase in patient visits and crowding, which jeopardizes quality of care. In this paper, aiming at understanding when and how the hospital system become crowded, we develop a queueing model and numerically test possible strategies to alleviate crowding. Finally, we propose a plan for further research and some open questions.