Abstract
Rising patient volumes in emergency departments (EDs) around the world are putting significant strain on both emergency medicine and entire healthcare systems. EDs are many times the first points of entry into hospitals for patients with health concerns. One of the ED's primary challenges is to meet unpredictable patient demand. This unpredictable patient demand can lead to a significant length of patient stay in the ED. To better understand the factors influencing patient length of stay, we propose a discrete event simulation (DES) model for an ED. Based on data collected from job shadowing at Phelps Health Emergency Department in Rolla, Missouri, a simulation model was constructed. The simulation model represents specific aspects of the ED system's layout, resources, and actors. The simulation model considers various ED factors that may contribute to patient length of stay such as rate of arrival, rate of discharge, rate of treatment, and resource availability. The effect of these factors on the average length of patient visits at various times and different resource utilizations was investigated. ED managers can use the recommendations from this research to enhance staffing and resource allocation.