Simulation to Improve Service Performance of Outpatient Department in Laem Chabang Hospital

Abstract

This article focuses on the queuing system study in outpatient services, Laem Chabang hospital, Chonburi. Due to increasing number of patients continuously, the hospital has met a long waiting time problem for patients. The service procedures are as follow (1) enrollment (2)  weighing/measuring height/pressure measurement (3) history review (4) examination (5) Bloodshed (6) wait after the doctor (7) get medication, then service completion. Thus work improvement concepts have been developed and the simulation theory is applied instead of real system. Ten scenarios come from 3 approaches: (1) combining service points; (2) doctor’s schedule adjustment; and (3) Type 2 patient appointment with service starting at noon. Experimental results show that the best plan improves efficiencies as follow: the number of patients receiving the service increases with 10 persons per day; the total duration of the first patient type is reduced as 45.48 minutes; the total duration of the second patient type is reduced as 23:53 minutes, and the total duration of the third patient type is reduced as 49.13 minutes.