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Emergency department modeling

ProcessModel models an emergency department the way it models any process: patients arrive, wait for a space, are seen and leave. The Healthcare industry puts that model into the department’s own words and gives you three things to work with: a palette, a lens and a report.

Choose Healthcare

Section titled “Choose Healthcare”

Open View ▸ Show Industry Palette. On a model with no industry the panel opens with the question “Which industry?” and one card for each industry:

  • Process plant reads “Tanks, lines, fillers, dairy and bulk”.
  • Software delivery reads “A team, a plan of work, releases”.
  • Healthcare reads “Patients, staff and the spaces they are seen in”.
The Industry panel with the question Which industry? and three cards: Process plant, with the line Tanks, lines, fillers, dairy and bulk; Software delivery, with A team, a plan of work, releases; and Healthcare, with Patients, staff and the spaces they are seen in.
Figure 1. The question that opens on a model with no industry. Healthcare is the third card.

Choose Healthcare and the Emergency Department face opens in the panel. For how the industry palette works in general, see Industry palettes and the lens.

What the Emergency Department face gives you

Section titled “What the Emergency Department face gives you”
The Emergency Department face on an empty canvas: the Change industry link, the box Your ED: visits a year at 25,000 with the note Pack default, the button Start an Emergency Department model, the heading CORE TILES with the first tiles, and the lens note with its Remove lens button.
Figure 2. The Emergency Department face on an empty canvas: the visits box, the start button and the first tiles.

The palette. At the top of the face are the box Your ED: visits a year and the button Start an Emergency Department model. Below them are twelve tiles to drag onto the canvas, from Arrivals to Discharge / Admit. A tile arrives sized to your visits and wired to the tiles already on the canvas. See The Emergency Department palette and Visits a year and sizing.

The lens. A lens changes what you read, never what is computed. At the foot of the face a note says: “This model reads in an emergency department’s words. Remove lens takes the lens off the model; the elements stay, and one undo puts it back.” With the lens on, an Entity reads as a Patient, and the settings and the report use the department’s own terms. See Settings for an emergency department model.

The report. The Output Report of a model with the lens on shows a strip of seven headline tiles, a Rules strip under it, and six tabs of its own: Front Door, Flow, Getting Out, Crowding, Team and Spaces and Money. See The emergency department report: headline and rules, The emergency department report tabs and Cost per patient.

Where to begin

Section titled “Where to begin”

There are two ways in.

  1. Start from a typical department. Under the visits box, the button Start an Emergency Department model builds a model for your size, with its run settings, in one step. See Start a typical emergency department.
  2. Build from the tiles. Enter your visits a year, then drag the tiles onto the canvas in any order. See The Emergency Department palette.

Either way, run the model as you run any other and read the result in the Output Report. Care models, which add a way of running the department, are in Care models.

The articles

Section titled “The articles”