Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Dissertations that have an embargo placed on them will not be available to anyone until the embargo expires.
Title
Simulation of 48-Hour Queue Dynamics for A Semi-Private Hospital Ward Considering Blocked Beds
ORCID
N/A
Access Type
Open Access Thesis
Document Type
thesis
Degree Program
Industrial Engineering & Operations Research
Degree Type
Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (M.S.I.E.O.R.)
Year Degree Awarded
2016
Month Degree Awarded
February
Abstract
This thesis study evaluates access to care at an internal medicine unit with solely semi-private rooms at Baystate Medical Center (BMC). Patients are divided into two types: Type I patient consumes one bed; Type II patient occupies two beds or an entire semi-private room as a private space for clinical reasons, resulting in one empty but unavailable (blocked) bed per Type II patient. Because little data is available on blocked beds and Type II patients, unit-level hospital bed planning studies that consider blocked beds have been lacking. This thesis study bridges that gap by building a single-stream and a two-stream discrete micro-simulation model in Excel VBA to describe unit-level bed queue dynamics at hourly granularity in the next 48-hour time horizon, using historical arrival rates and census-dependent discharge rates, supplemented with qualitative results on complexity of patient-level discharge prediction. Results showed that while we increase additional semiprivate beds, there was notable difference between the traditional single-stream model and the two-stream model concerning improvement in bed queue size. Possible directions for future research include patient-level discharge prediction considering both clinical and nonclinical milestones, and strategic redesign of hospital unit(s) considering overflows and internal transfers.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/7945687
First Advisor
Hari Balasubramanian
Second Advisor
Joan Roche
Third Advisor
Chaitra Gopalappa
Recommended Citation
Chen, Wei, "Simulation of 48-Hour Queue Dynamics for A Semi-Private Hospital Ward Considering Blocked Beds" (2016). Masters Theses. 317.
https://doi.org/10.7275/7945687
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/317
Included in
Business Intelligence Commons, Health and Medical Administration Commons, Health Information Technology Commons, Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Commons, Operational Research Commons, Other Medicine and Health Sciences Commons, Other Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons