Effect of certificate of need law on emergency department length of stay.

Background: The impact of the Certificate of Need (CON) law on Emergency Department (ED) care remains elusive in the academic literature.

Objectives: We study the impact of CON law on ED Length of Stay (LOS).

Methods: We examine ED LOS to detect any statistically significant difference between CON and non-CON states.

Models for improving patient throughput and waiting at hospital emergency departments.

Background: Overcrowding diminishes Emergency Department (ED) care delivery capabilities.

Objectives: We developed a generic methodology to investigate the causes of overcrowding and to identify strategies to resolve them, and applied it in the ED of a hospital participating in the study.

Methods: We utilized Discrete Event Simulation (DES) to capture the complex ED operations.

Impact of facility damages on hospital capacities for decision support in disaster response planning for an earthquake.

Hospitals provide life-saving functions and emergency assistance to communities when disaster strikes. Any damage to hospitals from a disaster, either structural and non-structural, can impair these capabilities. In addition, an inaccurate estimation of the treatment capacities available at hospitals in a disaster-affected region can severely affect the success of emergency relief plans.

Transient modeling in simulation of hospital operations for emergency response.

Rapid estimates of hospital capacity after an event that may cause a disaster can assist disaster-relief efforts. Due to the dynamics of hospitals, following such an event, it is necessary to accurately model the behavior of the system. A transient modeling approach using simulation and exponential functions is presented, along with its applications in an earthquake situation.