Skip Navigation


IMA Journal of Management Mathematics Advance Access originally published online on January 25, 2006
IMA Journal of Management Mathematics 2006 17(3):277-288; doi:10.1093/imaman/dpi042
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
17/3/277    most recent
dpi042v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Griffiths, J. D.
Right arrow Articles by Williams, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The authors 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. All rights reserved.

A queueing model of activities in an intensive care unit

J. D. Griffiths**,1, N. Price-Lloyd1, M. Smithies2 and J. Williams3

1 School of Mathematics, Cardiff University, UK, 2 Critical Care Unit, University of Wales Hospital, Cardiff, UK, 3 School of Mathematics, Cardiff University, UK

** Email: griffiths{at}cardiff.ac.uk

Activities in an intensive care unit (ICU) at a major teaching hospital are modelled by means of a queue-theoretic approach. Using data supplied by the ICU relating to the admissions process, the bed availability and the length of stay of patients, it was possible to fit theoretical distributions to the observed ‘arrival’ and ‘service’ distributions. Queueing equations relevant to a multi-channel system having random arrivals and hyper-exponential service times for each channel are set up, and solved iteratively. Results obtained match well with observations, and the model is then utilised to investigate several ‘what if? ’ scenarios. Reference is made to a simulation model developed in conjunction with the queueing model.

Keywords: queues; intensive care unit; bed-management

Received on 13 December 2004. accepted on 22 September 2005.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.