With the healthcare reform and technology advancements, hospital operations are becoming increasingly dynamic due to the complexity of patient flows and the variation in patient treatment time. The Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) is a unit that treats a variety of patient types with varying treatment phases and times. The bed capacity optimization at PACU is important to balance the patient needs and the operational cost. In this research, we utilized two approaches to optimize the bed capacity at the PACU in a US community hospital. First, we used a Lean approach (Takt time and Standard Work) to identify the optimal bed capacity in the PACU. Next, we developed a discrete event simulation model to capture the system dynamics at PACU. The optimal bed capacity was then identified by simulating alternative scenarios from the validated baseline model. By comparing these two approaches and through the real-life experiments, it was found the simulation approach produces more accurate result of six beds than the Takt time approach, which recommended four beds. However, the Takt time approach takes significantly less amount of time, which could be favorable in certain cases. Finally, we recommend guidelines to identify the best approach(s) for implementation purpose.
Keywords…show more content… Review of Simulation in Health Care Literature
From the past decade healthcare is one of the top areas which are being explored, trying to cover every gap in healthcare industry. Simulations have always played an important role for improvising new methodologies for healthcare process and quality improvement owing to availability of several user friendly software in market which have reduced the number of requirements on technical skills for modelling and running a simulation project. Discussing on how important simulation in healthcare is, Lowery say “the current Healthcare environment is ripe for the use of simulation” [5]
2.2.1. Multiple Patient Flow and resource optimization through
