Simulation modeling for emergency bed requirement planning

Due to its highly stochastic nature and complex interaction between services involved, health care has been a demanding area of application for computer simulation. This paper includes details and results of a simulation study realized in the Surgical Emergency Department at Istanbul University School of Medicine. The purpose is to suggest new bed capacities to improve the current system, and also to provide the management with guidelines for their expansion plans. For this aim, arrival rates, treatment procedures, inpatient admittance, and service durations have been carefully analyzed and modeled. The model, coded in SLAM-II simulation language, has been run under several bed capacity scenarios, and resulting queueing and waiting patterns have been discussed in detail.