Improving patient timeliness of care through efficient outpatient cliniclayout design using data-driven simulation and optimisation

摘要

With greater demand for outpatient services, the importance of patient-centric cliniclayout design that improves timeliness of patient care has become more elucidated. In thispaper, a novel simulation-optimisation (SO) framework is proposed focusing on the physicaland process flows of patients in the design of a paediatric orthopaedic outpatient clinic.A discrete-event simulation model is used to estimate the frequency of movements betweenclinic units. The resulting information is utilised as input to a mixed integerprogramming (MIP) model, optimising the clinic layout design. In order to solve the MIPmodel, Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO), a metaheuristic approach enhanced with severalheuristics is utilised. Finally, the optimisation model outputs are evaluated with thesimulation model. The results demonstrate that improvements to the quality of the patientexperience can be achieved through incorporating SO methods into the clinic layout designprocess.