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The Composite Crowding Index for the Medical Emergency Department  

Lee, Young-Hoon (Department of Information and Industrial Engineering, Yonsei University)
Kim, Jeong-Woo (Department of Information and Industrial Engineering, Yonsei University)
Lee, Yoon-Ho (Department of Information and Industrial Engineering, Yonsei University)
Kim, Seung-Ho (Department of Emergency Medicine, Yonsei University, College of Medicine)
Park, Yoo-Seok (Department of Emergency Medicine, Yonsei University, College of Medicine)
Park, In-Cheol (Department of Emergency Medicine, Yonsei University, College of Medicine)
Publication Information
Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers / v.36, no.1, 2010 , pp. 59-68 More about this Journal
Abstract
The medical emergency departments are suffering from the crowdness of patients, hence the quality of medical service the patients are receiving are getting poorer. Overcrowding of medical emergency departments may incur the waiting time for the treatment, and the improper treatment in time. For the operational control of the emergency department, the crowding index is commonly used to identify the crowding intensity, with which the operation process is managed, and future process can be expected. In this study the composite crowding index is suggested, in which the trend of inpatients rate, the age and acuity of patients, and resource of ED are considered. The validity of the suggested crowding index is discussed by the regression analysis for the index and the actual number of inpatients, and by the simulation study using the process model and the real data.
Keywords
Emergency Department; Crowding Index; Regression Analysis; Simulation Method;
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