HDSS: A Hospital Design Support System architecture

Hospital layout design plays a crucial role in ensuring operational efficiency. This study presents a Hospital Design Support System, a data-driven framework that integrates the Four-Step Transportation Model, Discrete-Event Simulation, and Exploratory Network Analysis to systematically assess hospital layouts. The HDSS evaluates four key operational criteria: spatial crowdedness, patient waiting times, patient walking distances, and difficulty in wayfinding. Hospitals exhibit spatial and operational characteristics akin to small cities and factories, making transportation planning and Discrete-Event Simulation highly applicable in evaluating hospital layout performances in terms of the four operational criteria. Exploratory Network Analysis further reveals the inherent structural tendencies that impact hospital efficiency and resilience. Additionally, evaluation mechanisms, including aggregation, relativisation, and interpretation, translate disaggregated simulation outputs into actionable metrics, enabling comparative assessment of design alternatives. This study contributes a systematic approach to hospital layout evaluation, offering valuable insights for architects and policymakers aiming to enhance hospital layout design. • A decision support system was developed to enhance hospital patient flow efficiency. • A hybrid simulation was developed to evaluate patient flow in hospitals. • A systematic evaluation framework was developed to support informed decision-making.