Article ID: | iaor20072408 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 58 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 246 |
End Page Number: | 254 |
Publication Date: | Feb 2007 |
Journal: | Journal of the Operational Research Society |
Authors: | Churilov L., Ceglowski R., Wasserthiel J. |
Keywords: | simulation: applications, datamining |
While simulation models have furthered understanding of the operations of emergency departments (EDs) and the dynamics of the ED within the healthcare system, they only model patient treatment implicitly, tracing the paths patients follow through the ED. By identifying the core patient treatments provided by the ED and incorporating them into a Discrete Event Simulation model, this paper provides insight into the complex relationship between patient urgency, treatment and disposal, and the occurrence of queues for treatment. The essential characteristics of the presented model are used to indicate a generally applicable methodology for identifying bottlenecks in the interface between an ED and a hospital ward.