Reducing time in an emergency room via a fast-track
Garcia, M.L.; Centeno, M.A.; Rivera, C.; DeCario, N.
Simulation Conference Proceedings, 1995. Winter
Volume , Issue , 3-6 Dec 1995 Page(s):1048 - 1053
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Summary:Queues at emergency rooms (ER) are prioritized based on the
patient's sickness level. As a consequence, patients with low priority
frequently have to wait excessively long. At Mercy Hospital, we began to
study means by which such time would be reduced, without putting in
jeopardy the life of critical patients. As an initial effort, we studied
the flow of patients at the Emergency Department (ED) and decided to
model it with and without a fast track lane. A simulation study revealed
that indeed a fast track lane reduces by almost 25% the time in the
system for patients with low priority without negatively affecting the
times of patients with higher priority
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