A decision support system for hospital emergency departments designed using agent-based techniques

This paper presents the results of an ongoing project whose objective is to develop a model and a simulation that, used as decision support system, aids the heads of hospital emergency departments (ED) to make the best informed decisions possible. The defined ED model is a pure Agent-Based Model, formed entirely of the rules governing the behavior of the agents that populate the system. Two distinct types of agents have been identified, active and passive. Active agents represent people, whereas passive agents represent services and other reactive systems. Actions and interactions of agents are represented using Moore state machines. The model also includes the communication system and the environment in which agents move and interact. The simulation has been implemented using NetLogo and it has been used to evaluate the potential benefits of the derivation to primary care services of those patients who attend ED without requiring an urgent attention.