Modelling and Managing Patient Flows in a Hospital Outpatient Environment

Papiya Bhattacharjee () and Pradip Kumar Ray ()
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Papiya Bhattacharjee: Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Pradip Kumar Ray: Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

Chapter 57 in Proceedings of the International Conference on Managing the Asian Century, 2013, pp 513-519 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract A hospital Outpatient System is usually a complex system comprising multiple facilities and services, such as consultation, medical examination and medication for different classes of patients requiring services of different specialities. In such a system, patients may enter the system at different facilities, may leave the system from different facilities and may follow different possible pathways during the process of care. The resulting patient flow rates and routings may directly affect the performance of the system with respect to resources and other constraints. In such an environment, it is a challenging task to manage and control the patient flows in such a way that resources are optimally utilized and the delays experienced by patients at various stages of care are minimized. In this context, modelling patient flows may provide important insights for improving the performance of the system. This paper presents some pertinent issues and their implications related to variations in patient flows for different facilities and patient classes.

Keywords: Outpatient system; Patient flow; Performance of healthcare processes; Patient classes; Utilization of resources (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-4560-61-0_57

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