Study on the Area of Waiting Space in the Old Area of a Tertiary Hospital Based on AnyLogic Simulation

Abstract

The waiting space is the place where patients stay the longest during the entire medical treatment process, and the adequacy of its spatial area to the number of waiting patients has a significant impact on the treatment experience. Due to the continuous expansion of the medical scale and the increasing outpatient volume, congestion in the waiting areas of the old area of tertiary hospitals in Guangzhou is common, seriously reducing patients’ medical experience. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the optimal waiting area space in the old area based on the number of consultation rooms and evaluate the current situation of the waiting area to optimize the waiting area reasonably. Taking the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University as an example, this study determines the daily outpatient volume of departments under specific consultation room numbers, uses AnyLogic to simulate the medical treatment process of patients, outputs the change in the number of patients in the first waiting area. Based on the mean and peak number of waiting patients during peak hours, the study calculates the areas required for “generally adequate” and “specially adequate” waiting space respectively. These are then compared with the current area to evaluate the adequacy of the current waiting space.