Decision support system and the adoption of lean in a Swedish emergency ward

Purpose – Facilitated by a decision support system tool, the purpose of this paper is to find the “best” allocated number of surgeons and medicine doctors that reduce patients' non‐value‐added time (NVAT) and total time in the system (TTS).Design/methodology/approach – Interview and observation are first conducted in order to get general insights about (and to understand) the emergency ward of Sahlgrenska Hospital in Gothenburg (Sweden) and its value stream (flow). Then, time‐related data are collected by conducting time measurements empirically and through the triage database. The statistics of the collected empirical data represent the initial state of the system and are utilised as the input of ARENA® simulation. A simulation scenario is designed by constructing a 3×3 table (= nine combinations) that contains a varying number of surgeons and medicine doctors allocated in the emergency ward. For each combination, 1,000 replications apply (=10 runs @ 100 replications). “Runs” are the cycles or how many t...

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