SIGTE: A System for Management of Waiting Time in Hospital Emergencies

This article proposes an integrated system for management of waiting times in hospital emergencies, called SIGTE. The system minimizes the waiting time of patients in the hospital emergency queues of the Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS), balancing the demands of care and mitigating problems of overcrowding. The SUS guarantees the population free access to health care through its service network. However, the increasing number of patients and the stagnation of hospital expansion generate problems of overcrowding, high waiting times for care and, in some cases, even deaths. SIGTE manages the hospital emergency queues through the balanced distribution of users among the health units of the hospital network. This management allows emergencies with shorter waiting time and reduces the hospital overload. The results obtained in the evaluation show that SIGTE indicates the hospital with the shortest waiting time, performing the correct balancing of users.