A Simulation-Based Approach for Optimal Nurse Scheduling in an Emergency Department

摘要

The purpose of this study was to determine an effective nurse schedule for the Emergency Department (ED) of York Hospital (York, PA). The goal was to minimize the patients’ average waiting time, subject to various requirements from the hospital and the nurses. An ARENA simulation model was built to model the ED’s current staffing plan and to evaluate alternative schedules proposed by a custom-built Decision Support System (DSS) and by OptQuest. The recommended schedule reduces the average waiting time by 33% for critical-care patients and by 53% for intensive-care patients, while simultaneously reducing the number of nurses by one.