Modeling of patient flows in a large-scale outpatient hospital ward by making use of electronic medical records

All departments of an outpatient hospital ward of Nagoya University hospital were simulated to examine patient flows and congestion. The method of gathering the required data on times for all outpatients and their routes is described in the performing simulation, especially by making use of the electronic medical records. An outpatient visits one or more clinical departments and/or one or more test/inspection rooms, the reception area, and the payment department. In this procedure, a series of data of terminal units and of test/inspection terminals was used to obtain the required input data for performing simulation as well as the electronic medical records. It was found that the proposed procedure was quite effective to perform a simulation of a large-scale hospital to examine patient flows by applying an actual case.