Queue Management during Health Pandemics: A Queuing Theory Perspective

Abstract

The era of coronavirus has called for sustained social distancing measures to minimize the spread of the viral disease. Healthcare establishments are reducing the size of their working staff; while others are running their outfits base on shift work in other to ensure protocols for social distancing.  Inherent in social distancing protocol is the potential for generating waiting lines at service delivery points. Healthcare centres in many countries are already inundated with loads of patient’s attendance on daily basis for treatment off mild to severe ailments. COVID-19 has added a further burden on the already frail health systems. Whiles visits are increasing, social distancing measures are to be ensured. Quick service delivery which is an indispensable need of patients visiting hospitals for treatment is shortened. The occurrence of waiting line, an impediment to healthcare provision has become commonplace in most healthcare centres in Ghana in particular. In addition to loss of financial gains, delay and unsatisfactory healthcare could lead to loss of lives. Health units are dealing with the effective management of staff schedules to curtail the impact of COVID-19 and at the same time cover up capacity to meet the added health care delivery demands. Accordingly, efforts to reduce time spent in waiting to receive medical attention is crucial. In this paper we study the queue situation at a case Outpatient Department (OPD) by applying query theory and offer recommendations for queue management. The study was conducted in the month of May 2020. We present also, an approach to determine the optimal number of service windows required to reduce the time spent waiting for healthcare attention. Numerical analysis of the queuing situation at the case department is given also, drawing from relevant equations from queuing theory.