A simulator of a multiphasic patient-screening facility

A SIMULTOR of the Multiphasic Patient Screening Facility at the L.D.S. Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah was developed. The SIMULATOR run "on-line" from the MEDLAB terminal on the research computer in the Department of Biophysics and Bioengineering at the L.D.S. Hospital. The purpose of the SIMULATOR is to help an operator to optimize the screening facility by analyzing the effect of changing the parameters in the model of the system. The SIMULATOR is easy to use and has as its output: 1) the bottlenecks of the system; 2) the mean, maximum, and minimum times for patients going through the system; and 3) a histogram of the times it takes patients to go through the system. The SIMULATOR was validated by comparing the output of the SIMULATOR with the real data collected on six days in the screening facility. Several examples of how the SIMULATOR can be used to optimize the facility are given. The SIMULATOR can used for simulating almost any patient screening facility.