A Simulation on the Service Performance of Out Patient Department: A Case Study

Abstract

This study focused on improving the performance of an Out Patient Department in a public hospital in Sri Lanka. There were two basic processes at the department namely; ticketing and channeling. The patients were first numbered and offered tickets before meeting the doctors. Thereafter, they waited in a queue until one of the doctors become idle. The investigations observed that the department currently operates with significant customer waiting times. Thus the aim of this study was to reduce the customer waiting time in the observed queues. Although t several doctors were serving, only two of them were considered in simulating the system. The sample size was 150 patients. Observations were collected for two hours in two weekdays. The system was simulated using the student version of Rockwell ARENA 14.5. The Input Analyzer recorded that the arrival patterns of patients, ticketing and channeling processes to follow the BETA distributions. The waiting times of patients in queues near ticketing counter, doctor 1 and doctor 2 were respectively 4.82, 34.99 and 26.82 in minutes. The study recommended doubling the resources used at ticketing counter as a means of reducing the waiting time. The proposed model recorded the corresponding waiting times of patients in queues near ticketing counter, doctor 1 and doctor 2 to be 0.64, 26.73 and 14.52 in minutes. The study suggested to further study the system aiming at locating another ticketing counter for the system by assessing the financial feasibility.