Improve patient wait time and Increase operational efficiency using dynamic simulation and analysis.
Increase ER / ED department efficiency using dynamic healthcare simulation software - Simcad Pro Health.
We have all been there, spending countless hours in a waiting room only to finally receive medical attention in a hallway, or if you were lucky enough to make it to an examination room, you sat hopeless, wondering if a doctor even knew that you existed. Excessive patient wait times can be tolling on the patient both physically and emotionally; affecting the morale of the patient, doctors, nurses and medical staff. Let’s take a look at some of the most common contributing factors (and their implications) which lead to one of America’s biggest challenges in the healthcare community today; optimizing the ED to reduce patient wait times and increase overall efficiency.
Several elements can be attributed to increased patient wait times including, variability in patient arrival, poor patient flow due to check in procedures/architectural planning, and resource contentions caused by a lack of medical staff or poorly allocated resources. These circumstances (and others) can force severe implications on an ED leading to poor patient and staff morale, inadequate patient tracking, medical error and confusion, decreased patient well being, reduced throughput, and increased operating costs.
So how can these excessive wait times be addressed
For years, many healthcare professionals have turned to traditional simulation tools in an effort to gain operational foresight and have struggled to rectify the key issues that contribute to excessive patient wait times and poor operational efficiency. In theory, these simulation tools seem to be an adequate option to explore when looking to achieve a solution to such operational setbacks, but why is it that so many of these projects have failed? In the case of traditional tools, the graphical aspect of the model was built in a drag and drop style interface.
Creating the graphical model actually generated code that is then sent to the SIMAN engine, a technology from decades past. As our model expanded and the detailed reality of the environment was created, we were required to continue modeling in either an intermediate programming or scripting environment or the SIMAN engine itself. It was found that accurately modeling the environment beyond simple pretty pictures not only took a substantial amount of time (and therefore money), but also demanded an incredible amount of knowledge, and unnecessary workload just to get a glimpse of the operation as a whole; but what about validation, optimization, scenario analysis and using the tool as an integral part of the organization’s continuous improvement program? After all, isn’t process improvement the main focus?