Abdominal surgery process modeling framework for simulation using spreadsheets

摘要

We provide a continuation of the existing Activity Table Modeling methodology with a modular spreadsheets simulation. The simulation model developed is comprised of 28 modeling elements for the abdominal surgery cycle process. The simulation of a two-week patient flow in an abdominal clinic with 75 beds demonstrates the applicability of the methodology. The simulation does not include macros, thus programming experience is not essential for replication or upgrading the model. Unlike the existing methods, the proposed solution employs a modular approach for modeling the activities that ensures better readability, the possibility of easily upgrading the model with other activities, and its easy extension and connectives with other similar models. We propose a first-in-first-served approach for simulation of servicing multiple patients. The uncertain time duration of the activities is modeled using the function "rando". The patients movements from one activity to the next one is tracked with nested "if()" functions, thus allowing easy re-creation of the process without the need of complex programming. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.