Simulation-based verification of lean improvement for emergency room process

One of the key challenges to health care access in Canadian hospitals is growing overcrowding of the Emergency Departments (EDs), leading to the medical personnel overload, and the excessive waiting times to receive proper care. These adverse effects directly impact the patient satisfaction levels, the ability of the medical professionals to attend promptly to patients¿ health issues, and generate unnecessary costs. Addressing the sources of waste and improving the process provides better care and higher patient satisfaction, as well as increases operational efficiency and the ability of the medical professionals to intervene on time. This paper describes an effort aimed at improvement of patients¿ experience over their ED stay. A combination of lean tools were used to analyze, assess and improve the current situation. Simulation models based on current and future (desired) states were developed. Comparative analysis of both enabled verification of feasibility of proposed solutions, and provided quantifiable results.