Title: Length of stay reduction in the emergency department and its quantification using complex network theory

Authors: Antonio Del Torto; Rossella Pozzi; Emanuele Porazzi; Elisabetta Garagiola; Fernanda Strozzi

Addresses: Service Department, Exergy Spa, Olgiate Olona (Varese), Italy ' School of Engineering, University Carlo Cattaneo – LIUC, Castellanza (Varese), Italy ' School of Engineering, University Carlo Cattaneo – LIUC, Castellanza (Varese), Italy ' School of Engineering, University Carlo Cattaneo – LIUC, Castellanza (Varese), Italy ' School of Engineering, University Carlo Cattaneo – LIUC, Castellanza (Varese), Italy

Abstract: Overcrowding in emergency department (ED) has become an increasingly significant problem worldwide. Different crowding measures have been proposed in the literature and, between them, the length of stay (LOS) is one of the most recognised. In this paper the LOS in the ED of a hospital located in the southern central region of Italy is calculated; than the ED process is represented as a network and, due to the identification of the bottleneck node, possibilities to reduce the LOS through changes to the actual process can be identified. The present work demonstrates that the LOS reductions obtained by process changes and measured by the analytical LOS calculations can be assessed also through the changes in the topological properties of the activities network, that are measured using complex network measures.

Keywords: network; emergency department; length of stay; LOS; overcrowding.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2019.103122

International Journal of Operational Research, 2019 Vol.36 No.3, pp.337 - 361

Received: 18 Jun 2016
Accepted: 26 Nov 2016
Published online: 21 Oct 2019 *

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