A Review on Simulation and Modelling for Patient Flow in Emergency Department

Abstract

At the moment, most of the hospitals are more interested in patient satisfaction because this has been identified as a main issue of quality of service indexes. In most of the Asian countries' the type of registration system being operated in the healthcare systems are a sort of mixed-mode. Specifically, there are scheduled patients, as well as patients who just walk in and register. Unfortunately, this type of registration structure could increase the patient waiting period even in emergency cases. Interestingly, various methodologies have been explored in order to shorten this undesirable waiting time. This paper focuses on exploration of the characteristics and significance of existing models and simulation techniques from the literature. The combination of agent-based modelling (ABM), DES and integration of DES and ABS technique has been chosen as the solution to modelling patient emergency waiting time in the emergency department realistically. The proactive and independent characteristics of agents in both approaches will contribute to the good representation of patient emergency waiting time in the especially in the emergency department.