Real option analysis of flexibility in a hospital emergency department expansion project : a systems approach

Hospital Emergency Departments across the United States have been experiencing demand in excess of their capacity to treat patients for the last two decades. This research considers a hypothetical case inspired by a hospital in the Greater Boston undergoing an ED expansion to meet existing and projected demand. A traditional infrastructure expansion project approach to plan, design and immediately build for expected demand 10 to 15 years into the future is compared to a flexible design able to meet short term demands and then adapt to future demand realization. It is the overall objective of this research to identify, characterize and quantify the parameters that should be considered in ED expansion projects and provide useful modeling techniques to drive investment decisions that best allow hospital administrators to provide expected level of service to their patient population.

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Maseda, Luis J

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Richard de Neufville.

• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/44704

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/44704