Complexity-augmented triage: A tool for improving patient safety and operational efficiency

Manufacturing and Service Operations Management

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2014, Pages 329-345

  Saghafian, Soroush ^a   Hopp, Wallace J ^b   Van Oyen, Mark P ^c   Desmond, Jeffrey S ^d   Kronick, Steven L ^d  

^a Arizona State University   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

^d UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDICAL SCHOOL   (United States)

Author keywords

Emergency department; Healthcare operations; Markov decision processes; Patient prioritization; Priority queues; Triage

Indexed keywords

COMPUTER SIMULATION; EMERGENCY ROOMS; MARKOV PROCESSES; RISK PERCEPTION; SAFETY ENGINEERING;

EMERGENCY DEPARTMENTS; HEALTH-CARE OPERATIONS; MARKOV DECISION PROCESSES; PRIORITIZATION; PRIORITY QUEUES; TRIAGE;

PATIENT TREATMENT;

EID: 84904689282     PISSN: 15234614     EISSN: 15265498     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1287/msom.2014.0487     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. Argon NT, Ziya S (2009) Priority assignment under imperfect information on customer type identities. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 11(4):674-693.
2. Baker M, Clancy M (2006) Can mortality rates for patients who die within the emergency department, within 30 days of discharge from the emergency department, or within 30 days of admission from the emergency department be easily measured? Emergency Medical J. 23(8):601-603. (Pubitemid 44295216)
3. Batt RJ, Terwiesch C (2012) Doctors under load: An empirical study of state-dependent service times in emergency care. Working paper, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
4. Ben-Tovim DI, Bassham JE, Bennett DM, Dougherty ML, Martin MA, O'Neill JL, Sincock JL, Szwarcboard MG (2008) Redesigning care at the Flinders Medical Centre: Clinical process redesign using "lean thinking." Medical J. Australia 188(6): 27-31.
5. Brennan TA, Leape LL, Laird NM, Hebert L, Localio AR, Lawthers AG, Newhouse JP, Weiler PC, Hiatt HH (1991) Incidence of adverse events and negligence in hospitalized patients. New England J. Medicine 324(6):370-376.
6. Buyukkoc C, Varaiya P, Walrand J (1985) The c. rule revisited. Adv. Appl. Prob. 17:237-238.
7. Clark JR, Huckman RS (2012) Broadening focus: Spillovers, complementarities, and specialization in the hospital industry. Management Sci. 58(4):708-722.
8. Cobham A (1954) Priority assignment in waiting line problems. J. Oper. Res. Soc. Amer. 2:70-76.
9. Cobham A (1955) Priority assignment-A correction. J. Oper. Res. Soc. Amer. 3:547.
10. Cox DR, Smith WL (1961) Queues (Methuen & Co., London).
11. Diercks DB, Roe MT, Chen AY, Peacock WF, Kirk JD, Pollack CV Jr, Gibler WB, Smith SC Jr, Ohman M, Peterson ED (2007) Prolonged emergency department stays of non-ST-segment-elevation myocardial infarction patients are associated with worse adherence to the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guidelines for management and increased adverse events. Ann. Emergency Medicine 50(5):489-496. (Pubitemid 47603257)
12. Dobson G, Tezcan T, Tilson V (2013) Optimal workflow desicions for inestigators in systems with interruptions. Management Sci. 59(5):1125-1141.
13. Fernandes CM, Tanabe P, Gilboy N, Johnson LA, McNair RS, Rosenau AM, Sawchuk P, et al. (2005) Five-level triage: A report from the ACEP/ ENA five-level task force. J. Emergency Nursing 31(1):39-50. (Pubitemid 40186235)
14. FitzGerald G, Jelinek GA, Scott D, Gerdtz MF (2010) Emergency department triage revisited. Emergency Medicine J. 27(2): 86-92.
15. Gardner WA, Napolitanob A, Paura L (2006) Cyclostationarity: Half a century of research. Signal Processing 86(4):639-697. (Pubitemid 43242966)
16. Gilboy N, Tanabe P, Travers DA, Rosenau AM, Eitel DR (2005) Emergency Severity Index, Version 4: Implementation Handbook (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD).
17. Graff LG, Wolf S, Dinwoodie R, Buono D, Mucci D (1993) Emergency physician workload: A time study. Ann. Emergency Medicine 22(7):1156-1163. (Pubitemid 23191030)
18. Green L, Savin S, Wang B (2006a) Managing patient service in a diagnostic medical facility. Oper. Res. 54(1):11-25.
19. Green LV, Soares J, Giglio JF, Green RA (2006b) Using queuing theory to increase the effectiveness of emergency department provider staffing. Acad. Emergency Medicine 13(1):61-68. (Pubitemid 41827294)
20. Hay E, Bekerman L, Rosenberg G, Peled R (2001) Quality assurance of nurse triage: Consistency of results over three years. Amer. J. Emergency Medicine 19(2):113-117. (Pubitemid 32205269)
21. Hopp WJ, Spearman ML (2008) Factory Physics, 3rd ed. (McGraw-Hill, Burr Ridge, IL).
22. Huang J, Carmeli B, Mandelbaum A (2012) Control of patient flow in emergency departments, or multiclass queues with deadlines and feedback. Working paper, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
23. Ierson KV, Moskop JC (2007) Triage in medicine, part I: Concept, history, and types. Ann. Emergency Medicine 49(3):275-281. (Pubitemid 46273865)
24. Jacobson EU, Argon NT, Ziya S (2012) Priority assignment in emergency response. Oper. Res. 60(4):813-832.
25. Kakalik JS, Little JDC (1971) Optimal service policy for the M=G=1 queue with multiple classes of arrival. Report, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA.
26. Terwiesch C (2011) The effects of focus on performance: Evidence from California hospitals. Management Sci. 57(11): 1897-1912.
27. Keen WW (1917) The Treatment of War Wounds (W.B. Saunders, Philadelphia).
28. Kronick SL, Desmond JS (2009) Blink: Accuracy of physician estimates of patient disposition at the time of ED triage. SAEM Midwest Regional Meeting, Ann Arbor, MI.
29. Lewis PAW, Shedler GS (1979) Simulation of nonhomogenous Poisson processes by thinning. Naval Res. Log. Quart. 26(3):403-413. (Pubitemid 10420950)
30. Lippman S (1975) Applying a new device in the optimization of exponential queueing system. Oper. Res. 23(4):687-710.
31. Liu SW, Thomas SH, Gordon JA, Weissman J (2005) Frequency of adverse events and errors among patients boarding in the emergency department. Acad. Emergency Medicine 12:49-50.
32. Moskop JC, Ierson KV (2007) Triage in medicine, part II: Underlying values and principles. Ann. Emergency Medicine 49(3): 282-287.
33. Patrick J, Putterman ML, Queyranne M (2008) Dynamic multipriority patient scheduling for a diagnostic resource. Oper. Res. 56(6): 1507-1525.
34. Peck JS, Benneyan JC, Nightingale DJ, Gaehde SA (2012) Predicting emergency department inpatient admissions to improve sameday patient flow. Acad. Emergency Medicine 19(9):1045-1052.
35. Peck JS, Kim S-G (2010) Improving patient flow through axiomatic design of hospital emergency departments. CIRP J. Manufacturing Sci. Tech. 2(4):255-260.
36. Saghafian S, Hopp WJ, Van Oyen MP, Desmond JS, Kronick SL (2012) Patient streaming as a mechanism for improving responsiveness in emergency departments. Oper. Res. 60(5):1080-1097.
37. Saghafian S, Van Oyen MP, Kolfal B (2011) The "W" network and the dynamic control of unreliable flexible servers. IIE Trans. 43(12):893-907.
38. Siddharathan K, Jones WJ, Johnson JA (1996) A priority queueing model to reduce waiting times in emergency care. Internat. J. Health Care Quality Assurance 9(5):10-16.
39. Tcha D-W, Pliska SR (1977) Optimal control of single-server queuing networks and multi-class M=G=1 queues with feedback. Oper. Res. 27(2):248-258.
40. van der Zee SP, Theil H (1961) Priority assignment in waitingline problems under conditions of misclassification. Oper. Res. 9(6):875-885.
41. Van Mieghem JA (1995) Dynamic scheduling with convex delay costs: The generalized c. rule. Ann. Appl. Prob. 5(3):809-833. (Pubitemid 126032828)
42. Vance J, Sprivulis P (2005) Triage nurses validly and reliably estimate emergency department patient complexity. Emergency Medicine Australasia 17:382-386. (Pubitemid 41742971)
43. Wang Q (2004) Modeling and analysis of high risk patient queues. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 155(2):502-515.