RESOURCES SCHEDULING IN THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT USING SIMULATION IN DISASTER CONDITIONS: CASE OF COVID-19

International audience With the propagation of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), many researchers study the influence of this pandemic on the patient flow at the emergency department (ED). This article proposes a simulation model for the emergency department in the case of COVID-19 period. The model is based on real data. It allows monitoring system performances, like the Length of Stay (LOS), and the percentage of patients that are transferred to another hospital, and it helps managers to face the pandemic. After the validation of the model, we tested studied scenarios depending on the arrival rate and the percentage of patients arriving at the ED with symptoms related to COVID-19. Our contribution is resumed in the evaluation of the preparedness of participation of the studied hospital in the national program in case of an outbreak of Coronavirus (when the rate of arrival is high), so we suggested interventions include beds sharing and adding resources. This leads to minimizing the transfer rate of arrested, critical, and overall cases by 20.06 %, 33.38 %, and 5.98 %, respectively. Besides, the LOS is reduced by 63.43 %. The given results could be presented as recommendations for the managers of the ED to plan the resources in a suitable manner to minimize the transfer of patients in case of outbreaks of this pandemic in the future.