Practice question · Multiple choice
A hospital plans its emergency department to run at 98% average utilization "for efficiency." Queueing theory predicts…
Hints
- What absorbs a random surge when the system is nearly full?
- Queues grow toward infinity as utilization approaches 1.
Show the answer
B. Waiting times exploding near full capacity
Why
With variable arrivals, waiting time scales roughly with : at 98% the denominator is 0.02 and any surge stacks patients for hours. Slack capacity is not waste in variable-demand systems, it is the product.
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