Case Study: Southeastern Health improves emergency department flow with Simio simulation

Southeastern Health reduces ED length of stay by 1 hour with Simio

Southeastern Health faced the challenge of a crowded emergency department, leading to long patient wait times, staff burnout, and difficulty managing variable arrival rates and resource constraints. Their goal was to improve patient flow and staff experience by evaluating a transition from their traditional unit-based design to a team-based pod system. They engaged Simio to build a discrete event simulation model to compare these designs and test their robustness under different conditions.

Using Simio simulation software, a detailed model of the ED was built and calibrated with over 88,000 patient visits. The solution compared the current unit-based layout against a proposed pod-based system under various staffing scenarios and demand fluctuations. The results showed the optimized pod system significantly reduced patient length of stay, especially for high-severity cases, and maintained quality of care while increasing resource utilization. Simio's model provided proof of concept that the pod design was more robust under increased demand, empowering Southeastern Health to make evidence-based decisions for their ED redesign.

Southeastern Health