Abstract
It is globally accepted to act against global warming through the reduction of carbon dioxide. Carbon footprint is historically defined as the total emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent. Healthcare system consumes large amount of energy in order to provide health services to patients who have to pass a series of treatment processes at each care unit. These treatments require different medical equipment that consume electrical power, and the more electrical power consumption is, the more greenhouse gases specifically CO2 emissions are. The discrete-event simulation has been applied to develop the model of the treatment process and the estimation of carbon dioxide in the treatment process. By the knowledge that the simulation is not an optimization method in itself, the OptQuest optimization method has been applied to reduce greenhouse gases and carbon footprint in the patients′ flow in the emergency department by considering leveling off the waiting time and length of stay as constraints to leveling up patient′s satisfaction. The numerical results provided by simulation and OptQuest show the efficiency of OptQuest as a technique for patient flow optimization.
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Vali, M., Salimifard, K., Chaussalet, T. (2021). Carbon Footprints in Emergency Departments: A Simulation-Optimization Analysis. In: Masmoudi, M., Jarboui, B., Siarry, P. (eds) Operations Research and Simulation in Healthcare. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45223-0_9
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