Simulation and ABC to Improve the Performance of Emergency Department

Abstract

This study aims at developing an Activity Based Costing (ABC) for the Emergency Department (ED) in a Jordanian hospital to determine associated costs and clarifies the financial practices inside ED rooms. For this purpose, simulation model is built for patients at the current ED activities and determine the costs for each room in ED. The total costs (JD), number of served patients, and profits (JD) are 263562, 10256, and 146677, respectively. Improvement is suggested by studying three three-level controllable factors using simulation. It is noted that focusing on the lowest total costs, B-1 (adding two beds with one added nurse) and B-2 (introducing four beds with two added nurses) provide the two smallest total costs (JD) of 252568 and 253320, respectively. Whereas, for the largest number of served patients is achieved by A-1 (assigning one sharing doctor for Abdominal) and C-1 (adding another room for abdominal with new doctor) of equal number of served patients of 10466. In order to combine these two performance measures, the profit associated with each scenario is considered. It is found that factor A-1 provides the largest profit (= 150,390 JD). The results of this research may provide decision makers valuable cost information that helps them in improving ED performance.