Improving Out-Patient Flow at An Indian Ophthalmic Hospital

ABSTRACT In the recent past, Healthcare sector has shown an exceptional growth all over the world. At the same time, rising health consciousness among patients and demand for quality services has resulted in a stiff competition among hospitals. Consequently, hospitals are increasingly focusing on improving the operations to meet the requirements of patients. To meet this requirement, hospitals need to improve and redesign their existing processes. In this mission of redesigning the healthcare systems, simulation modelers have an important role to play. Simulation modelers can help hospitals in delivering high quality healthcare by proposing strategic scenarios that work in synchronization with operations management philosophies. In this study, we extend an effort in this direction by showcasing the use of simulation as a modeling and analysis tool at an Indian ophthalmic hospital. In particular, we model the outpatient department with a goal of achieving a streamlined patient flow. We analyze various scenarios to compute the adequate resources, while maximizing their utilization. This study results in significant reduction in service lead time, especially in the circumstances where every extra minute spent add to the vows of patients and their aids.