IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/tjsmxx/v5y2011i2p101-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using simulation to model and optimize acute care access in relation to hospital bed count and bed distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Y Wang
  • W L Hare
  • L Vertesi
  • A R Rutherford

Abstract

In Canada, acute care refers to the in-hospital treatment of a disease during its initial phases (typically measured in days). Determining how bed availability impacts patient access to care is of great interest to the British Columbia (BC) Ministry of Health Services and to the health service delivery industry worldwide. In this article we discuss a simulation queueing theory model with three input streams consisting of Emergency, Direct Elective and Direct Transfers, designed to examine the question of how bed counts impact access to acute care services inBC's hospitals. We further develop an optimization algorithm to determine optimal bed allocations among hospital segments in order to minimize average patient wait time. The algorithm is demonstrated on an exemplar hospital.

Suggested Citation

  • Y Wang & W L Hare & L Vertesi & A R Rutherford, 2011. "Using simulation to model and optimize acute care access in relation to hospital bed count and bed distribution," Journal of Simulation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 101-110, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:tjsmxx:v:5:y:2011:i:2:p:101-110
    DOI: 10.1057/jos.2010.7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1057/jos.2010.7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/jos.2010.7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:tjsmxx:v:5:y:2011:i:2:p:101-110. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/tjsm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.