Improving discrete event simulation in the emergency department with innovative and robust input analysis tools

The emergency department (ED) serves as a primary patient entry point into hospitals, and bottlenecks in the ED cause patient flow problems and increase costs throughout the entire hospital. EDs increasingly employ discrete event simulation as an analytical decision making tool to alleviate these problems. Simulation models quantify complicated emergency care delivery systems and help improve emergency department efficiency, simultaneously raising hospital revenues and providing better service to patients. Successfully modeling ED operations requires a solid understanding of how data from the hospital fits into the simulation model. However, little guidance exists regarding the impact of data validation and input analysis on the outcomes of hospital simulations. This paper describes means by which hospital administrators and simulation professionals can better understand how the choices made during input analysis influence the results of simulation models.