A closed queueing network approach to the analysis of patient flow in health care systems

Abstract

Objectives: To model patient flow in health care systemswith bed capacity constraints in order to providea useful decision aid for health service managers.Methods: We model the patient flow of health caresystems using a closed queueing network frameworkwith the assumption that the system is always full.Key performance measures of the health care systemare also derived.Results: Using parameters taken from a study of ageriatric department in the UK, we show that the modelis useful in helping service managers to gain betterunderstanding of the behaviour of the system. In addition,we demonstrate that the model could help improvingdecision-making by allowing managers to exploredifferent options and evaluate their impacts onperformance. Our findings highlight the importanceof policy makers taking into account the interactionsbetween different phases of care.Conclusions: We have developed a novel approach tomodelling the flow of patients through health caresystems with constrained bed capacity.