A GENERIC SIMULATION FRAMEWORK FOR EMERGENCY CARE UNITS: MODELING PATIENT FLOW AND RESOURCE UTILIZATION USING SYMPY

ABSTRACT While emergency care units must be integrated into a healthcare network to increase their effectiveness, operational strategies must be adopted to improve efficiency. We developed a simulation model and evaluated patient queues and staffing levels to assess the efficiency of clinical and pediatric care at a public health unit. Our results suggest that the public health unit is efficient, with 80% to 97% utilization of bottleneck resources; however, there are resource imbalances. The scenarios indicate that the level of effectiveness of the UPA can be increased by 24% if future investment prioritizes hiring a general practitioner, a screening nurse, and a secretary in this sequence. Conversely, the reduction of any of these three functions has a significant negative impact on system efficiency. The approach developed in open source can be applied and adjusted to other UPAs of SUS, the Brazilian Unified Health System.