Presenting a Simulation Model to Optimize the Patient’s Movement Flow and Length of Stay (Study Case: In the Emergency Department of a Selected Specialized Hospital in Zahedan City)

Background and Aim: The emergency department of the hospital is considered one of its main entrances; which has provided health care and treatment for critical and non-critical patients and faces various health and treatment restrictions, but the main emphasis is always on resource limitations. Many simulation projects were implemented in hospitals and first in emergency departments with the aim of increasing productivity. The present research is a general description of the patient’s movement flow and length of stay in the emergency department of a selected specialized hospital in Zahedan city. The aim of the current research is to prevent care complications, reduce waiting time and patient stay in the emergency department, present a simulation model and improve it based on discrete-event simulation. Materials and Methods: Using the data bank of the emergency department system based on the required data and also through the in-person observation of the data related to the duration of the patient’s stay in the emergency department, including the arrival time, waiting time, The type of services provided to the patient, the time of service and the time of departure were collected and checked and confirmed by experts related to this field so that it has the highest level of reliability with the facts. The data were designed in Excel software, and then data analysis and simulation model creation were done using Aren V14 software, and according to the results, the effect of the proposed solutions was evaluated. Results: The findings of the present research showed that the longest queue created in the emergency department of the selected specialized hospital in Zahedan city is related to medical examination and additional tests. By implementing the simulation model and testing different solutions, solution 3, which means adding one nurse to nursing consultation and one person to radiology, has the most optimizing effect on the performance of the system at different levels of the patient admission process. and the cost of its implementation is more than solutions 1 and 2. This solution created a 14% decrease in the average length of stay and a 28% decrease in the average duration of additional tests. Conclusion: The use of queuing models and simulation techniques improve the performance of the system and their implementation has significant effects on reducing the waiting time and length of stay of patients in the emergency department, increasing the quality level of the process of monitoring patients. It leads to optimal management of resources and increased productivity.