Discrete Event Simulation of Emergency Department Activity

Explores the potential of discrete event simulation (DES) methods to advance system-level investigation of emergency department (ED) operations. To this end, the authors describe the development and operation of Emergency Department SIMulation (EDSIM), a new platform for computer simulation of ED activity at a Level 1 trauma center. The authors also demonstrate one potential application of EDSIM by using simulated ED activity to compare two patient triage methods.