ED Simulator™ - because
“Best Practices don’t always yield Best
Results©”
ED Simulator™ (EDS) is a revolutionary
new tool for Emergency Department throughput, staffing,
patient flow, and efficiency analysis. Created
from over 12 years of simulation and clinical consulting
experience in Emergency Departments, EDS is an ED-specific
simulation application that focuses on the issues, parameters,
metrics, and analysis necessary to improve operations
in one of healthcare’s most complex yet critical
departments.
EDS now offers a level of detail, accuracy, and quantitative
analysis (output background) that is simply unavailable
through spreadsheets, flowcharts, traditional Consulting
methodologies, and even other simulation software. EDS
combines the power and analytical capabilities of simulation
with database and data
analysis technologies that help you go deeper, faster
than even before.
Yet, EDS is easy to learn and use. Whereas traditional
ED simulations took weeks or even months to construct,
EDS can be coded in less than a day! And because EDS
is easier to use than any other ED Simulation tool or
software, it can be used at the unit Manager level as
a tool for ongoing process analysis, continuous process
improvement, and accurate, objective internal benchmarking.
No simulation or coding experience required!
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Click
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“What get measured gets managed.” EDS allows
users to “go deep” into process analytics to see
the effects of multiple, complex changes on specific and systemic
departmental and staffing metrics, and to understand the impacts
of change BEFORE they are made. Based on a core MedModel simulation
“engine”, EDS offers an accurate, detailed, and
analytical replication of the inner workings of an ED and
its ancillary support departments. Through its “what
if” analysis. EDS lets users test possible solutions
and alternatives to an ED’s most pressing problems,
understand the results, and quantify the effects of changes
on such issues as:
 • patient flow, (EDS B&A LOS)
•
staff utilization and efficiencies, (util comp)
•
resource, bed, and spatial demand patterns,
•
ancillary department demand,
•
interrelated capacity and flow constraints,
•
throughput and wait times, (EDS LOS Breakdown)
•
even staff and patient satisfaction!
Quantification of Change is often a stumbling block to change implementation,
since the actual outcomes of process changes are impossible to quantify
without tools like simulation. Thus changes can be frightening at best,
and are thus often not implemented, particularly by those who haven’t “bought
in”. Simulation quantifies the effects of change (output background,
or several images from the group I sent), in time and in dollars, so
proper decisions can be made objectively and with confidence.
Click
to enlarge images (enable pop-ups)
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Systems Learning. Knowing how a system will react to external and internal
changes can be difficult to ascertain, particularly in the “heat
of battle” and in the midst of a constantly changing system. This
is why the US Military regularly uses battlefield
simulations to enable
leaders to make better decisions, better analysis, and increase effectiveness.
Via “what if” scenarios, and “playing” with
their systems, EDS allows an ED Manager to learn their ED better through
a better understanding of the outcomes of changes to their system, including
changes to acuity, volume, staffing, inpatient bed delays, or ancillary
support services.
Creating creativity. Research has
shown that “prototypes” (whether they be clay models
or simulations) help drive the creative process, rather than the other
way around. In other words, by offering a venue for creative though that
is free of consequence and risk, “prototypes” offer a way
for staff to test ideas and challenge the status quo. This furthers the
creative process and allows for the development of unique solutions to
problems that night have been seen as insurmountable in the past.
Objective Analysis. Often, change options and system “bottlenecks” are
hotly contested subjects. Finger-pointing can replace change management
when discussing critical topics. EDS offers objective, scientific, and
data-driven solutions which create different discussions and different
arguments, and which also allow for a more objective and “rational” discussion.
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