In an emergency department (ED), the demand for service is not constant over time. This cannot be accounted for by means of waiting lists or appointment systems, so capacity decisions are the most important tool to influence patient waiting times. Additional complexities result from the...

Objective: To develop a discrete event simulation of ED patient flow for the purpose of forecasting near-future operating conditions, and to validate the forecasts using several measures of ED crowding. Methods: We developed a discrete event simulation of patient flow using evidence from the...

Boarding patients and the extra workload they introduce are a major concern in emergency departments. Not in the least because they confront the physicians with a challenging task: prioritizing between boarding patients and patients currently under treatment in the emergency department. The main...

Over 20% of Americans do not have adequate access to primary care services due to a lack of available physicians (HRSA, 2014). In response many have called for an increased role of the Nurse Practitioner. The retail health clinic, a recent innovation, is well suited to serve as a conduit for...

Inappropriate use of Emergency Departments (EDs) is rising in many OECD countries. In the available literature on avoidable ED visits, only a few paper use a direct measure of avoidable visits, and so far no paper was able to compare the impacts of patient and of health system characteristics on...

Transportation has been one of the obstacles preventing people from timely and appropriate access to healthcare. Emergency Department (ED), which provides around-the-clock care for illnesses and injuries, including life-threatening ones, is known as the “safety net” of the healthcare system....