Abstract
The current Japanese night-time emergency health care system can no longer satisfy patients' demand due to the patient's changing consultation behavior and the doctor's uneven distribution. In order to understand the current situation of the night-time emergency health care in Japan, we propose a model to simulate the whole process of the night-time emergency health care system, including the patient's consultation behavior process, the patient's transportation process, and the negotiation process between a medical institute and an ambulance. We apply the agent-based modeling (ABM) approach to take into account the decision-making process of the patient, the medical institution, and the re services department. We validate the model according to the actual patients' ambulance transportation time in the real situation. Especially, this model allows us to evaluate the proposed plan for improving the current daily rotation system of the Japanese night-time emergency health care system. As a result, we find that the proposed new daily rotation system will improve the medical services without raising the burden of the medical institute.
