Impact of an approach combining optimization and simulation to improve the service quality of an emergency department.

Introduction: Emergency Department (ED) represents a complex system due to its limited resources and random patient arrivals. It is often saturated by a continuous flow of patients, which causes an excessive wait time and length of stay.

Aim: To evaluate the impact of the proposed combining approach (optimization with simulation) on improving the performance of an emergency department in terms of patients' length of stay and resources utilization balanced (physicians and nurses).