Using simulation and Data Envelopment Analysis in optimal healthcare efficiency allocations

As in many other parts of the world, overcrowding in Taiwan´s hospital Emergency Departments (ED) is an increasingly scrutinized area. EDs in Taiwan hospitals must implement efficient systems that minimize costs while also providing satisfactory levels of care. The primary goal of this investigation is to develop and deploy a mixed method incorporating Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate potential bottlenecks, maximize throughput flows, and identify solutions in reducing patient time in the ED while also increasing patient satisfaction. Hospital administrators can use the model data as a realistic reproduction to evaluate different scenarios and make modifications which best fit hospital operations. This paper incorporates various types of ED resources as inputs including: number of physicians, number of nurses, and number of beds. We assessed the impact of changing levels of these inputs on ED operation efficiency, with optimal efficiency resource allocations as the goal.