An Application of Single and Multi-server Exponential Queuing Model in Some Selected Hospitals of the North-Western Nigeria

Abstract

Time spent by patients to get service at the hospital is becoming a major source of concern to health care providers. The results of keeping patients waiting for too long in a queue in order to assess medical services may put them in so many inconveniences or at times can lead to congestion. Also, providing too much service capacity to operate a system incurs excessive cost. But not providing enough service capacity results in excessive waiting time and cost. This brings the need to strike a balance between excessive waiting time and cost. To achieve this, multi-server exponential queuing system was adopted and applied. The queuing performance characteristics were calculated with help of Microsoft Excel package. The data for this study were collected from eight hospitals across Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto and Zamfara States in North-Western Nigeria through observations and personal interview. The results reveal that the General hospital Hunkuyi is the busiest because it has recorded the highest utilization factor as well as the highest number of patients in the queue. However, Ahmadau Bello University, Teaching hospital, Zaria is the least busy hospital and Federal medical centre, Katsina has the lowest number of patients in the queue.