In this paper, we presented a simulation optimization approach toward optimizing resource allocation in Firoozgar Emergency Department, Tehran, Iran. Most of the departments have interactions in healthcare systems. Therefore, modeling one isolated department such as the emergency department is not acceptable. Since laboratories, radiology departments, and pharmacies have high interactions with emergency departments, clinical pathway was used as a key for the integrated simulation of the emergency department in this paper. Simulation model was validated using real data. In emergency departments, there are various patients with different priorities. Thus, there should be different response variables, i.e. a multi-response optimization problem. Here, a new approach using the design of experiments, data envelopment analysis, multi-layer perceptron artificial neural network, and radial basis function was presented for optimizing the resource allocation problem. Since resources in healthcare are costly and limited, budget and resource constraints were applied in the model. The framework presented in this study is applicable to any healthcare department.
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