Hospital maxi-emergency protocol testing by a double dynamics simulation model

An emergency service is devoted to supply first aid to outpatients. Given high variability of patient arrival, it is dimensioned and ruled in order to give a quick and accurate response also in case of congestion. Due to exceptional occurrences, the amount of assistance requested may not be satisfiable by resources at disposition. For such a case, called a maxi-emergency, a suitable plan, aimed at providing further resources and letting them operate in a short time, is set up. Such a plan cannot be tested during normal activity but shall be accurately checked in order to be effective. In the paper the maxi-emergency plan of a hospital placed in the Veneto Region is simulated in detail in order to check its effectiveness in different situations. The model is built up by suitably adapting a generalized emergency service model and the adopted simulation package is MicroSaint, which showed sufficient flexibility and user friendliness.