A novel Approach for Improving Patient Flow in Emergency Department

Emergency department (ED) is one of the most significant departments in healthcare facilities. Organizing patient flow in this department is a critical issue. However, large number of patients suffering from overcrowding as a result of a series of causes such as long waiting time, overburdened working staff, and delayed treatment. The purpose of this study is to develop a novel approach that improves patient flow within ED. Quality function deployment (QFD) has been employed by a set of factors to resolve the overcrowding problem in ED. The improvement of patient flow can be indicated by patient's waiting time reduction. The results demonstrate the consistency of the proposed framework. The waiting time of different patients' categories is adequately reduced which reflects the improvement of patient flow and consequently quality of the service in ED.