The healthcare industry is undergoing significant changes. Controlling costs, responding to new regulations and enhancing patient experience are just some of the areas that benefit from predictive modeling in healthcare. Healthcare providers around the globe use Arena to study patient flow, staffing requirements, optimize use of facilities, streamlining of ER and admission processes, facilities planning and more.
This video demonstrates an animation of a Pharmacy in Arena Visual Designer.
Features and Capabilities
Healthcare Predictive Modeling
- Arena uses a flowchart methodology that enables healthcare predictive modeling of your facility or process in a fast, intuitive and easy-to-learn manner
- Arena’s drag and drop elements and structures allow you to build simulations and visualize results with engaging 2D and 3D animation capabilities that do not require programming assistance
Dashboards for Predictive Analytics
- Model analysis is quick and easy with Arena’s built-in dynamic dashboards
- Within Arena you can build customized displays of the model information to enable you to better understand what is happening in your hospital and develop predictive analytics for your operations
Common Capabilities
- Analyze Patient Flow
- Streamline Admission Processes
- Improve ED Performance
- Optimize Facilities Utilization
- Validate Emergency Response Plans
What is Hospital Patient Flow Simulation?
Arena Hospital Patient Flow Simulation software helps hospitals measure and optimize their processes to improve patient flow. Arena allows hospital administrators to create models that can be tested and adjusted quickly—which lowers cost, saves time, and decreases the risk often associated with the standard trial-and-error approach.
Hospitals are dynamic systems that must continually adjust to today’s healthcare requirements. Not only must hospitals find new ways to enable better care at a lower cost, they must also improve efficiency and operational stability, while developing new care and business models to expand capacity. Unfortunately, most process improvement methodologies do not produce models that accurately predict results or help hospitals improve intended outcomes. That's where Arena Simulation comes in.
Arena has enabled hospitals to determine the following:
- Impact of arrival rates/patterns on patient length of stay
- Optimal resource requirements to meet surgical schedules
- Proper allocation of beds to match patient demographics
- Reduce costs through utilization of clinical communal resources
What is Emergency Medicine Simulation?
Arena Emergency Medicin Simulation for emergency departments enables you to model all aspects of the emergency department process and workflows. These simulation models typically include interactions between functions, resources required and variability within the process.
Inefficient processes in emergency departments can result in longer patient wait times or can even put patient lives at risk, especially when the unexpected happens. Inefficiency also increases costs and reduces profitability. Simulation helps you improve operations while preparing for the worst.
Emergency department simulation can improve efficiency and patient outcomes as well as reduce costs by enabling you to:
- Determine how many doctors, nurses, and support staff are needed for every shift
- Reduce the average time of emergency room visits
- Ensure there are enough patient beds available
- Share common equipment and department resources
- Determine which patients should receive immediate attention
Lean/Six Sigma Simulation Software
Lean manufacturing attempts to maximize value by identifying and eliminating waste, and Six Sigma attempts to improve quality by minimizing process variabilities that cause defects. One of the most significant challenges in implementing either of these methodologies is measuring how changes to a variable or a process affects that process and other processes downstream. Simulation can capture the impact of variability in ways that spreadsheets and other methods cannot.
What is Lean/Six Sigma Simulation?
Lean and Six Sigma simulation software produces digital models of your processes that allow you to see how hypothetical changes could ultimately reduce waste and defects, and improve value through cost reduction and improved throughput.Here are some examples of ways it has been used across several different industries:
- Manufacturing Rework: Automotive parts fail inspection and require rework, which is also causing gridlock in the system. Improving the pass rate will result in longer processing times, but the increase is small enough that overall throughput will be improved and chances for gridlock will be reduced.
- Order Processing: Orders for heavy trucks can contain conflicting configurations or are missing key information when they are sent to manufacturing. A new order processing system will catch errors before they are submitted by the dealers, resulting in more consistent processing times.
- Cancer Treatment Scheduling: when patients with the shortest jobs were scheduled first, staff and equipment resources were more available to patients with longer jobs later in the day.
- Managing Hospital Blood Work: using smaller trays to carry blood work tubes improved value by reducing wasted resources and turnaround time.