Vahdat Vahab, Namin Amir, Azghandi Rana, Griffin Jacqueline
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
Health Syst (Basingstoke). 2019 Jan 16;8(3):162-183. doi: 10.1080/20476965.2018.1561160. eCollection 2019.
With greater demand for outpatient services, the importance of patient-centric clinic layout design that improves timeliness of patient care has become more elucidated. In this paper, a novel simulation-optimisation (SO) framework is proposed focusing on the physical and process flows of patients in the design of a paediatric orthopaedic outpatient clinic. A discrete-event simulation model is used to estimate the frequency of movements between clinic units. The resulting information is utilised as input to a mixed integer programming (MIP) model, optimising the clinic layout design. In order to solve the MIP model, Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO), a metaheuristic approach enhanced with several heuristics is utilised. Finally, the optimisation model outputs are evaluated with the simulation model. The results demonstrate that improvements to the quality of the patient experience can be achieved through incorporating SO methods into the clinic layout design process.
随着门诊服务需求的增加，以患者为中心的诊所布局设计对于提高患者护理及时性的重要性日益凸显。本文提出了一种新颖的仿真优化（SO）框架，该框架聚焦于小儿骨科门诊诊所设计中患者的物理流程和诊疗流程。使用离散事件仿真模型来估计诊所各单元之间的移动频率。所得信息被用作混合整数规划（MIP）模型的输入，以优化诊所布局设计。为了解决MIP模型，采用了粒子群优化（PSO）方法，这是一种通过多种启发式算法增强的元启发式方法。最后，利用仿真模型对优化模型的输出进行评估。结果表明，将SO方法纳入诊所布局设计过程可以提高患者体验质量。
