HA 2014 Abstracts


Full Papers
Paper Nr: 1
Title:

A System Dynamics Model to Study the Impact of an Age Pyramid on Emergency Demand

Authors:

Bożena Mielczarek, Jacek Zabawa and Marek Lubicz

Abstract: This paper describes a system dynamics simulation model to analyse the relationship between age pyramid and the volume of patients arriving to hospital emergency departments located in a sub-region of Lower Silesia of Poland. The study relies on demographic and historical demand data, and the cohort forecasts for the population of the region. The results of the simulation experiments provide insights into the relationship between sub-regional demographic trends and population needs in relation to hospital emergency arrivals. The preliminary findings indicate that the forecasted long-term demographic changes in the population may increase the number of emergency patients in the area.
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Paper Nr: 3
Title:

A Hybrid Model for the Analysis of a Surgical Pathway

Authors:

Roberto Aringhieri and Davide Duma

Abstract: In this paper we focus our attention on the analysis of a surgical pathway from a patient-centred point of view. The main concern of this work is the introduction of some optimization modules in the management of the most critical resources in a surgical pathway, that is the stay beds and the operating rooms, and to evaluate their impact with respect to a set of patient– and facility– centred indices. We propose a hybrid simulation and optimization model: simulation is used in order to generate a real situation with respect to the inherent stochasticity of the problem while optimization is used to take the best decisions in different points of the surgical pathway.
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Paper Nr: 4
Title:

A Discrete Event Simulation Model to Support Bed Management

Authors:

Paolo Landa, Michele Sonnessa, Elena Tànfani and Angela Testi

Abstract: In recent years, due to the overcrowding of Emergency Department (ED) and the growing concern in reducing the number of inpatient ward beds, it has become crucial to improve the capacity planning and control activities, which manage the patient flows from EDs to hospital wards. Bed Management has a key role in this context. This study starts by a collaboration with the Local Health Government (LHG) of the Liguria region aimed at studying the impact of supporting bed management with some operational strategies without increasing the bed capacity. A large amount of data was collected over a one-year period at public hospital in Genova and a preliminary observational analysis was conducted to get the main information about the flow of emergency and elective patients from ED to inpatient wards. A Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model has been then developed in order to represent the real system. A scenarios analysis is proposed to assess the best strategy to improve the system performance without increasing bed capacity, by simply synchronizing bed supply and demand. The model can be used as a decision support tool to optimise the use of the available resources as well as to improve the quality of the patient pathway inside the hospital.
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