Analysis of Patients Boarding Time in Emergency Departments: A Discrete Event Simulation Approach

Abstract

The interaction between the emergency department and the inpatient unit is important in providing quality health care to patients. The number of patients waiting for a bed in the inpatient unit affects the workflow in the department because of the congestion that can result. In this sense, a longboarding time is detrimental to both the patients and the caregivers. This paper proposes a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model of process flowchart in an Emergency Department (ED) and three Inpatient Units (IUs) using Arena Software. The objective is to assess and investigate the impact of resources allocation in the Emergency Department and the Inpatient Units on the boarding time indicator and the wait time for beds in the Emergency Department. We found that adding beds in the Inpatient Units decreased the boarding time up to 53% and the waiting time for an ED bed decreased up to 73%.