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. 2016:2016:2731675.
doi: 10.1155/2016/2731675. Epub 2016 Jul 28.

Discrete Event Simulation Models for CT Examination Queuing in West China Hospital

Li Luo  1 , Hangjiang Liu  1 , Huchang Liao  1 , Shijun Tang  1 , Yingkang Shi  2 , Huili Guo  2
Affiliations

Discrete Event Simulation Models for CT Examination Queuing in West China Hospital

Li Luo et al. Comput Math Methods Med. 2016.

Abstract

In CT examination, the emergency patients (EPs) have highest priorities in the queuing system and thus the general patients (GPs) have to wait for a long time. This leads to a low degree of satisfaction of the whole patients. The aim of this study is to improve the patients' satisfaction by designing new queuing strategies for CT examination. We divide the EPs into urgent type and emergency type and then design two queuing strategies: one is that the urgent patients (UPs) wedge into the GPs' queue with fixed interval (fixed priority model) and the other is that the patients have dynamic priorities for queuing (dynamic priority model). Based on the data from Radiology Information Database (RID) of West China Hospital (WCH), we develop some discrete event simulation models for CT examination according to the designed strategies. We compare the performance of different strategies on the basis of the simulation results. The strategy that patients have dynamic priorities for queuing makes the waiting time of GPs decrease by 13 minutes and the degree of satisfaction increase by 40.6%. We design a more reasonable CT examination queuing strategy to decrease patients' waiting time and increase their satisfaction degrees.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The process for patient to accept CT examination.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Queuing diagram of fixed priority model.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Queuing diagram of dynamic priority model.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Performance comparison between the base model and the fixed priority model for GPs and UPs in terms of waiting time.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Performance comparison between the base model and the fixed priority model for GPs and UPs in terms of satisfaction rate.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Comparison between the base model, the dynamic priority model, and the fixed priority model for GPs and UPs in terms of waiting time.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Comparison between the base model, the dynamic priority model, and the fixed priority model for GPs and UPs in terms of satisfaction rate.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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