Queuing analysis for outpatient and inpatient services: a case study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to carry out queuing analysis to analyse patient load in outpatient and inpatient services to facilitate more realistic resource planning.Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts an analytical approach based on real life data (e.g. not a priori or an academic one where data are mingled to fit a theoretical stance) in accordance with the service level prescribed by the hospital administration. A service level is usually specified in terms of admissible range of queuing characteristics, such as mean patient waiting time, reduction of inordinate delays, incidences of minimum delays, average queue length, etc. which the management of a health organisation may decide to aim and control.Findings – Queuing analysis reported in this case study provides a basis for estimating medical staff size and number of beds, which are two very important resources for outpatient and inpatient services in a large hospital, and all other hospital resources in one way or another depen...