A Simulation of Patient Queuing System on MRI System at Tertiary Referral Hospital in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Radiology department at a tertiary referral hospital faces service operation challenges such as huge and various patient arrival, which can increase the probability of patient queuing. During COVID-19 pandemic, it is mandatory to apply social distancing protocol in the radiology department. A strategy to prevent accumulation of patients at one spot would be required. The aim of this study is to identify an alternative solution which can reduce the patient's waiting time in MRI services. Discrete event simulation (DES) is used for this study by constructing several improvement scenarios with Arenao simulation software. Statistical analysis is used to test the validity of base case scenario model, and to investigate performance of the improvement scenarios. The result of this study shows that the selected scenario is able to reduce 83.6% of patient's length of stay, which lead into a more efficient MRI services in radiology department, be able to serve patients more effectively, and thus increase the patient satisfaction. The result of the simulation can be used by the hospital management to improve the operational performance of the radiology department. © 2021 IEEE.