Demand and Capacity Modelling in Healthcare Using Discrete Event Simulation

Abstract

The NHS is right now confronting huge pressures relating to demand and capacity in radiology. The purpose of this research has been to provide information about MRI usage, details of operational aspects of MRI services, and to ascertain the planning intentions of NHS radiology services to keep up and create MRI capacity. The report expands on using Discrete Event Simulation (DES) to inspect and plan the utilisation of NHS hospital resources for the radiology department to help a 24 hr service that is available to outpatients which will help with diminishing patient waiting time, better resource usage, understanding the capacity and demand. Consequently, this research examines to adjust staff and resources with the demand of the MRI. The research was investigated using DES in various scenarios to find which resources are inactive; patients are treated slowly. DES helped in discovering resource utilisation and outpatient throughout the system. It additionally helped in distinguishing the bottlenecks in patient flow. The DES simulation results demonstrated that time for the outpatient in the system is less and more outpatients have been treated too. There is a higher level of outpatient patients leaving the system under 120 minutes. The report uncovered an MRI report interpretation time. Reception room time and MRI waiting room time are decreased significantly. It additionally exhibited with an expanded outflow of outpatients, resources, for example, MRI capacity and radiographer utilisation expanded.