Stochastic Network Models for Hospital Inpatient Flow Management

• Abstract

  After being treated in an emergency department, a patient's waiting time for admission to inpatient wards depends on time of the day, and can be excessively long when the patient's bed-request is in the morning. I will promote a stochastic network model that is based on an extensive empirical study and present a two-time-scale approach to analyze such a model. This analysis allows one to evaluate strategies such as inpatient discharge timing to flatten out the waiting time statistics throughout the day.

  This talk is based on joint works with Pengyi Shi (Georgia Tech), Ding Ding (University of International Business & Economics, Beijing), James Ang and Mabel Chou (NUS), and Jin Xin and Joe Sim (NUH).

• slides

• References
• J. G. Dai and P. Shi, "A Two-time-scale Approach to Time-varying Queues for Hospital Inpatient Flow Management", working paper, 2012.
• P. Shi, M. Chou, J. G. Dai, D. Ding, and J. Sim, "Hospital Inpatient Operations: Mathematical Models and Managerial Insights", submitted for publication in August, 2012.
• P. Shi, J. G. Dai, D. Ding, J. Ang, M. Chou, X. Jin and J. Sim, "Online supplement for Hospital Inpatient Operations: Mathematical Models and Managerial Insights", 2012.