Performance modelling of health-care service delivery in Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko,(AAUA) Nigeria using Queuing theory

Abstract

Queuing theory is the mathematical approach to the analysis of congestion and delays of waiting in line. It is generally considered a branch of operations research and often used in decisions making about resources needed to provide a service. It is very applicable to health care setting where they have patients waiting in line to be served. The purpose of this study determines the waiting, arrival and service times of patients at AAUA health-centre, to model a suitable queuing system and use simulation technique to validate the model. It employed analytical and simulation methods to develop the suitable model. The collection of waiting time for this study was based on the arrival rate and service rate of patients at the outpatient Centre. The data was calculated and analyzed using Microsoft Excel. Based on the analyzed data while the queuing system of the patients’ current situation was modeled and simulated using the Python programming language. The result obtained from the simulation model showed that the mean arrival rate of patients on Friday week1 was lesser than the mean service rate of patients (i.e. 5.33> 5.625 (λ > µ)). The analysis of the entire system of the AAUA health centre showed that queue length increases when the system is very busy. This work therefore evaluated and predicted the system performance of AAUA HealthCentre in terms of service delivery and propose solutions on needed resources to improve the quality of service offered to the patients visiting the health centre.