Decreasing waiting times with human and equipment resources: Study of the labor and delivery department with the use of computer simulation

This paper uses computer simulation to empirically test the sensitivity of a hospital labor and delivery department to the changing factor levels of human and equipment resources. Incremental human and equipment resources are tested to determine if human resources or equipment resources affect total average patient waiting times in the system as well as to whether the effects of each types of resources are equal or similar. Fractional factorial analysis is then used to construct an experiment whereby human and equipment resources are added simultaneously to determine if optimal interactions may be identified. ANOVA is used to identify these interactions and determine if the combination of human and equipment resources has the ability to reduce waiting times. As the climate of the healthcare industry changes with regulations, human and equipment resource management proves to be an important role in hospital design and patient comfort.