Optimizing Emergency Department Patient Flow Through Bed Allocation Strategies: A Discrete-Event Simulation Study.
Emergency department (ED) overcrowding and prolonged length of stay (LOS) remain critical issues in healthcare systems. This study compared 4 bed allocation strategies to optimize patient flow and resource utilization in a regional teaching hospital in Taiwan. A discrete-event simulation model was d...
| Publicado en: | Inquiry (00469580) Vol. 62; pp. 1 - 10 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , , |
| Formato: | algorithm research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Sage Publications Inc.
4/29/2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=184865203&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 184865203 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 00469580 INQ jtl: Inquiry (00469580) issn: 00469580 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: 4/29/2025 vid: 62 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. place: Thousand Oaks, California artinfo: ui: 184865203 184865203 184865203 10.1177/00469580251335799 184865203 ppf: 1 ppct: 9 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P tig: atl: Optimizing Emergency Department Patient Flow Through Bed Allocation Strategies: A Discrete-Event Simulation Study. aug: au: Wang, Sen-Tian Weng, Shao-Jen Yeh, Ting-Yu Chen, Chih-Hao Tsai, Yao-Te affil: Chang Bing Show-Chwan Memorial Hospital, Changhua, Taiwan sug: subj: Emergency Room Visits Bed Occupancy Health Resource Allocation Length of Stay Waiting Lists Patient Admission Academic Medical Centers Taiwan Human Emergency Patients Emergency Service Inpatients Taiwan Multicenter Studies Retrospective Design Record Review Health Facility Environment Comparative Studies Descriptive Statistics Organizational Efficiency Crowding Funding Source ab: Emergency department (ED) overcrowding and prolonged length of stay (LOS) remain critical issues in healthcare systems. This study compared 4 bed allocation strategies to optimize patient flow and resource utilization in a regional teaching hospital in Taiwan. A discrete-event simulation model was developed using 1 year hospital data from January 2022, including 29 718 ED visits. The following strategies were evaluated: (1) intra-departmental bed sharing, (2) optimized bed allocation, (3) cross-departmental bed lending with 5% capacity, and (4) combined optimization with bed borrowing. The model was validated by t -tests comparing the simulation outputs with actual hospital data. Results: All strategies demonstrated improvement compared to current operations. Of these, Strategy 4, combined optimization with bed borrowing, was the most promising: it maintained stable ED nursing utilization at 45.65% with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of 45.60% to 45.71% while reducing the cases of extended LOS. The rates of ED LOS exceeding 6, 12, and 24 h were 2.48%, 0.38%, and 0.12%, respectively, which is a significant improvement compared with the baseline. Optimization alone contributed to a 20% improvement in extended LOS under Strategy 2, while additional bed-sharing policies further improved performance by 10%. Conclusions: Strategic bed allocation combined with controlled bed-sharing policies achieved a 30% reduction in extended ED LOS without increasing nursing workload. The optimal strategy (Strategy 4) reduced cases of ED LOS exceeding 6 h to 2.48% while maintaining stable nursing utilization at 45.65%, demonstrating the effectiveness of combining optimization with resource sharing in ED patient flow management. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: algorithm research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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