Reducing time in an emergency room via a fast-track

Author

García, Marelys L. ; Centeno, Martha A. ; Rivera, Camille ; DeCario, Nina

Author_Institution

Dept. of Ind. & Syst. Eng., Florida Int. Univ., Miami, FL, USA

fYear

1995

fDate

3-6 Dec 1995

Firstpage

1048

Lastpage

1053

Abstract

Queues at emergency rooms (ER) are prioritized based on the patient´s sickness level. As a consequence, patients with low priority frequently have to wait excessively long. At Mercy Hospital, we began to study means by which such time would be reduced, without putting in jeopardy the life of critical patients. As an initial effort, we studied the flow of patients at the Emergency Department (ED) and decided to model it with and without a fast track lane. A simulation study revealed that indeed a fast track lane reduces by almost 25% the time in the system for patients with low priority without negatively affecting the times of patients with higher priority

Keywords

digital simulation; emergency services; medical administrative data processing; patient care; patient treatment; simulation; Mercy Hospital Emergency Department; critical patients; emergency room queue prioritization; emergency room time reduction; fast-track; patient flow; patient sickness level; simulation study; Bladder; Hospitals; Medical services; Modeling; Pain; Patient monitoring; Quality management; Quality of service; Systems engineering and theory; Wounds;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Simulation Conference Proceedings, 1995. Winter

Conference_Location

Arlington, VA

Print_ISBN

0-78033018-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WSC.1995.478898

Filename

478898