Predicting Patient Waiting Time in the Queue System Using Deep Learning Algorithms in the Emergency Room

Abstract

Many hospitals consider the length of time waiting in queue to be a measure of emergency room (ER) overcrowding. Long waiting times plague many ER departments, hindering the ability to effectively provide medical attention to those in need and increasing overall costs. Advanced techniques such as machine learning and deep learning (DL) have played a central role in queuing system applications. This study aims to apply DL algorithms for historical queueing variables to predict patient waiting time in a system alongside, or in place of, queueing theory (QT). We applied four optimization algorithms, including SGD, Adam, RMSprop, and AdaGrad. The algorithms were compared to find the best model with the lowest mean absolute error (MAE). A traditional mathematical simulation was used for additional comparisons. The results showed that the DL model is applicable using the SGD algorithm by activating a lowest MAE of 10.80 minutes (24% error reduction) to predict patients' waiting times. This work presents a theoretical contribution of predicting patients’ waiting time with alternative techniques by achieving the highest performing model to better prioritize patients waiting in the queue. Also, this study offers a practical contribution by using real-life data from ERs. Furthermore, we proposed models to predict patients' waiting time with more accurate results than a traditional mathematical method. Our approach can be easily implemented for the queue system in the healthcare sector using electronic health records (EHR) data.