Optimising Waiting Times at a Major Orthopaedic Hospital Using Simulation – A Case Study

In this paper, queuing model of the outpatient department in an orthopaedic hospital is studied. The objective is to analyse the bottlenecks caused due to the high waiting time in different sections of the hospital. The sections that have a high patient inflow rate and relatively greater service time causes queue formation, and therefore an increase in system time. The paper focuses on two key parameters, the total time spent by a person in the system or the waiting time before receiving service. Data collected from the hospital's Out-Patient Department (OPD) is used to build a base model that simulates the flow of patients through the departments. The study explores cost-effective solutions to reduce patient waiting time in a queue system. It evaluates various scenarios to determine the optimal solution with minimum waiting time and provides insights for improving the system without altering the hospital layout significantly. On comparison of the current setup with the optimised models through simulation, modifications such as adding multipurpose servers in registration and billing counters, implementing separate counters in sections where patient traffic is more, and making amendments to prevent patient visits to one section repeatedly have been suggested. The system performance has seen considerable improvement upon implementing them.