On the application of a polling model with non-zero walk times and priority processing to a medical emergency-room environment

Abstract

We consider a queueing model used previously (Scholz and Sunde, 1998) to model a military high frequency (HF) communication network. Our discussion has moved from the original case where we aimed to maintain a high grade of service for the highest priority traffic classes. The characteristics of this network were that link set-up time was longer than the service time: it often took longer to establish the connection than for the actual transmission of the message. In (Pearce et al., 2000) we looked at a polling model with multiple servers and multiple queues, with each server visiting the queues according to a server allocation algorithm. The queueing system comprises a set of waiting lines to which requests arrive to be served by a pool of servers. We restrict our attention to the case where movement of servers from queue to queue does not happen in zero time. Our discussion focuses on the basics of the two-queue situation. We look at the way this queueing model can be applied to a medical emergency room, where setting up for certain surgery procedures takes longer than the actual procedures themselves. The significance of this model is the applicability to different problems, from communication networks to medical emergency rooms.