 A simulation-based study for managing hospital emergency department's capacity in extreme eventsNan Xiao, Raj Sharman, H.R. Rao and Sumant Dutta International Journal of Business Excellence, 2012, vol. 5, issue 1/2, 140-154 Abstract: Hospital emergency departments' capacities to deal with a patient surge play an important role in preparedness for natural or man-made disasters. This paper examines how emergency departments in healthcare facilities could optimise the workflow during extreme events when there is a patient surge. This paper proposes a framework to reconfigure the workflow while maintaining treatment equality. Our results show that reorganising lower priority work processes and relocating the resources associated with those processes can shorten total waiting time in the emergency department, allowing better management of patient flows. Keywords: emergency departments; extreme events; discrete-event simulation; patient surges; health services; hospitals; New York; USA; United States; preparedness; natural disasters; man-made disasters; disaster management; emergency management; healthcare facilities; workflow optimisation; workflow reconfiguration; treatment equality; medical treatment; lower priority work processes; work process reorganisation; resource relocation; waiting times; patient flows; flow management; business excellence. (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijbexc:v:5:y:2012:i:1/2:p:140-154 Access Statistics for this article More articles in International Journal of Business Excellence from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.