title: Improving hospital bed occupancy and resource utilization through queuing modeling and evolutionary computation.
abstract: Scarce healthcare resources require carefully made policies ensuring optimal bed allocation, quality healthcare service, and adequate financial support. This paper proposes a complex analysis of the resource allocation in a hospital department by integrating in the same framework a queuing system, a compartmental model, and an evolutionary-based optimization. The queuing system shapes the flow of patients through the hospital, the compartmental model offers a feasible structure of the hospital department in accordance to the queuing characteristics, and the evolutionary paradigm provides the means to optimize the bed-occupancy management and the resource utilization using a genetic algorithm approach. The paper also focuses on a "What-if analysis" providing a flexible tool to explore the effects on the outcomes of the queuing system and resource utilization through systematic changes in the input parameters. The methodology was illustrated using a simulation based on real data collected from a geriatric department of a hospital from London, UK. In addition, the paper explores the possibility of adapting the methodology to different medical departments (surgery, stroke, and mental illness). Moreover, the paper also focuses on the practical use of the model from the healthcare point of view, by presenting a simulated application.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Craiova, Craiova 200585, Romania. Electronic address: smaranda.belciug@inf.ucv.ro.
authors.forename: Smaranda
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Belciug
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Informatics, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, Craiova 200349, Romania. Electronic address: gorunef@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Florin
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gorunescu
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001509:Bed Occupancy; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003625:Data Collection; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000379:methods; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006739:Hospital Administration; D006760:Hospitalization; D006761:Hospitals; D007902:Length of Stay; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000379:methods*; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012984:Software; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: Bed allocation optimization; Compartmental model; Genetic algorithm; Queuing system; Resource utilization optimization; What-if analysis