Managing Emergency Units Applying Queueing Theory

Abstract

Today managers of health systems must manage the resources at their disposal to ensure that service quality is adequate, this leads at the same time making decisions to ensure that these resources are managed efficiently and effectively. The decision process in healthcare systems is not trivial given the complexity of these systems. The application of tools (like queueing theory) for decision making in hospital systems is an area of opportunity because of the increasing financial pressure and the growing demand for care. This document shows how queueing theory can be applied for analyzing the performance of an Emergency Unit under different capacity scenarios. The analysis shows that increasing the number of servers required to maintain constant congestion(emphasis on efficiency)is more expensive than adding servers to maintain constant the probability that a patient has to wait (emphasis on quality and efficiency). The paper ends with recommendations for future research.