Hospital Outpatient Clinic Simulation

Hospital Outpatient Clinic Simulation (SimPy)

This repository contains a discrete-event simulation of an orthopedic outpatient department, implemented in Python using SimPy.

The model simulates patient flow through doctor examinations and X-ray services, incorporating appointments, walk-ins, lunch breaks, priority rules, and resource constraints to analyze queue lengths, waiting times, and resource utilization.

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Problem Description

The outpatient clinic operates with:

• Multiple doctors
• Limited X-ray rooms
• A mix of appointment-based and walk-in patients
• Time-dependent behaviors such as lunch breaks and afternoon speed-up

Patients may require:

1. First examination
2. X-ray imaging
3. Second examination (if X-ray is required)

The objective is to analyze how scheduling policies and resource allocation affect queues, waiting times, and throughput.

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Modeling Approach

• Discrete-event simulation using SimPy
• Priority-based resource allocation
• Doctor-specific stochastic service-time distributions
• Appointment punctuality modeled via uniform deviation
• Time-dependent service speed (afternoon speed-up)
• Slower X-ray service before lunch end

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Key Features

• Appointment and walk-in patient streams
• Priority handling for appointments vs. walk-ins
• Doctor lunch breaks with service suspension
• Second examination routing after X-ray
• Multiple X-ray rooms with queue balancing
• Detailed event logging
• Queue length tracking over time
• Performance statistics and visualizations

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Supported Patient Types

• Appointment patients
• Walk-in patients
• Type A: requires X-ray
• Type B: no X-ray

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Simulation Policies

• Priority rule:
  • Appointments are prioritized using their scheduled time
  • Walk-ins receive a large priority offset to ensure lower priority
• Special doctor roles (configurable):
  • Appointment-only doctor
  • Walk-in-only doctor
• Lunch break:
  • Doctors pause service between predefined times
• Afternoon speed-up:
  • Doctor service times are reduced after lunch

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Repository Structure

hospital-outpatient-simulation/
├── main.py
├── outputs/
│ ├── doctor_queue_lengths.png
│ └── xray_queue_lengths.png
├── README.md

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Requirements

• Python 3.x
• simpy
• numpy
• matplotlib

Install dependencies with:

pip install simpy numpy matplotlib

How to Run

Run the simulation with: python main.py

Simulation parameters (e.g., number of doctors, lunch times, priority rules) are defined at the top of main.py.

Output

The simulation produces:

• Detailed event logs (arrival, service start/end, departure)

• Queue length plots for:

  • Doctors
  • X-ray rooms

• Summary statistics including:

  • Total patients served

  • Appointment vs. walk-in counts

  • Doctor workloads

  • X-ray utilization

  • Referral rates per doctor