MBA (Regular) Program

Department of MIS
MIS 514 : Simulation and System Modeling
Assignment 2: Discrete Event Simulation



General coursework instructions

The coursework is to be done individually
The assignment is worth 1/2 the total coursework marks
The course work topic is Management of Patients Flows.

Coursework topic and general questions

You are required to build a Discrete Event Simulation model to represent the flow of
patients in a hospital as described below. You should then run the model to test the
policies specified below.
You should then write a report in which you advise the company about the required
level of resources to be deployed in the hospital and their impact on the number of
patients treated in the hospital and the time spent by patients in the hospital to
undergo treatment.

Hand in

A disk, which includes the simulation model
[40%]
The managerial report, which should include at least the following
1/ The Activity Cycle Diagram (ACD) for the problem.
2/ The simulation model diagram (or diagrams)
3/ Description of the scenarios simulated and their corresponding output graphs.
4/ Analysis of the results and your recommendations.
[60%]

I remind you that plagiarism is a very serious offence and carries heavy
penalties.


The deadline for handing in the coursework is Tuesday 15
th
April 2014


Description of the Problem

Patients are referred to a hospital from their GPs and arrive at the hospital following a
Poisson process with an average of 10 per hour. Upon arrival, patients are registered. The
duration of the registration process is exponentially distributed with an average of 10 minutes
and is carried out by one admission secretary. After registration, the patients are checked by
2 nurses, who decide about the type of treatment to be given to patients. The duration of the
checking process is distributed uniformly between 5 and 20 minutes.

If the patient condition is judged minor, the patient is not admitted to the hospital and
receives a treatment in the hospital out patient department. This treatment is carried out by
a doctor and its duration is normally distributed with a mean of 25 minutes and a standard
deviation of 4 minutes. If the patient condition is judged major, s/he is admitted into the in
patient department of the hospital to receive treatment. The duration of this treatment is
normally distributed with a mean of 90 minutes and a standard deviation of 15 minutes and
requires a bed and a doctor. The patient is discharged once the treatment is finished. The in
patient department has 6 beds. The number of doctors allocated to both the in patient and
the out patient departments is 6. However, doctors give priority to treatment of patients in
the in patient department over the treatment of patients in the out patient department.
From past experience, 30% of patients are considered to be minor.

Build a simulation model on SIMUL8 and run the model for a period of 1 week
assuming that the hospital operates 24 hours a day and that admission secretaries,
doctors, and nurses work 8 hour shift per day (that is there are 3 shifts per day). (40%)
Determine the number of patients treated every week and the waiting time of each
patient.(10%)
How will the number of patients treated every week and the waiting time of each
patient change if the following changes in the resource levels are implemented
(simulate each of this changes individually).
o Each shift includes 2 admission secretaries (4%)
o Each shift includes 4 nurses (4%)
o Each shift includes 10 doctors (4%)
o The number of beds in the in patient department is increased to 10. (4%)
o All these changes are implemented at the same time (4%)


Past observations have shown that 20% of patients with major condition need a second phase
of intensive treatment, which require an intensive care bed and a specialised doctor. The
duration of this intensive treatment phase is distributed exponentially with a mean of 360
minutes. There are 3 intensive care beds and 3 specialised doctors in the hospital

Modify the simulation model to include this new information (10%)
Run the simulation model and determine the number of patients treated every week
and the waiting time of each patient. (8%)
How will the number of patients treated every week and the waiting time of each
patient change if the following changes are implemented (simulate each of this
changes individually).
o Each shift includes 5 specialised doctors (4%)
o The number of intensive care beds is increased to 5. (4%)
o All these changes are implemented at the same time (4%)