A Model-Based Systems Engineering Simulation: Analysis and Design of Hospital Bed Maintenance in Critical Health Care Systems

Abstract

This thesis summarizes the results of various methodologies integrated to solve a staffing problem when cleaning and maintaining hospital beds. First, a simplified systems engineering design model was developed to translate the need for reducing the total turnaround time of maintaining hospital beds into a performance requirement of the average time a hospital bed waits for service. The tools that were used were queueing analysis, discrete-event simulation modeling, and optimization via simulation. Finally, this work presents the derived staffing requirements from the pertinent measure of effectiveness, the average waiting time.