Improving patient flow in emergency departments with OR techniques: a literature overview

摘要: The emergency department (ED) is an interesting field for operations research (OR) and management (OM) researchers. Having timevarying arrivals heterogeneous patients that need to be treated in consecutive processing steps by several doctors, nurses other employees, it a complex environment control. difficulty control EDs often results (over)crowded EDs. In general, ED said experiencing periods of crowding when the demand services exceeds available resources (Higginson, 2012). worldwide phenomenon with regional influences (Jayaprakash et al., 2009) may cause myriad operational problems like being hallways, excessive length stay (LOS) wait times, leaving without treatment or even medical errors increased mortality. Descriptive studies define (Hwang & Concato, 2004), examine causes effects (Richardson Mountain, 2009; Hoot Aronsky, 2008; Asplin 2003), propose models measure 2011; Higginson, 2012) can found literature. Applying OR OM techniques improve performance needed now more than ever since health budgets are tight, care rising higher standards demanded simultaneously.The scope articles have been selected discussion search method delineated Section 1.1 1.2 respectively. 2 will provide overview use processes. Considering existing literature, 3 outline my future perspectives.