Reducing time in an emergency room via a fast-track

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.