Abstract
This chapter introduces an approach to facilitate the use of concepts and methodologies from Systems and Complexity Sciences into the realm of Health Sciences. Health care is a convoluted system with many interdependencies of people, resources, and processes. Recently the use of Systems and Complexity Sciences has been proposed as a viable methodology to better understand and manage the challenges in the healthcare system. Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) is a branch of Systems and Complexity Sciences that brings a different perspective to lead the healthcare organization. We discuss the identification and application of CAS principles to the administration and leadership of the healthcare organization. The Emergency Department is utilized as a case study to identify and analyse the application of CAS concepts. The case study facilitates the understanding of the CAS concepts and their applicability to other healthcare organizations and departments.
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Notes
- 1.
Canadian Emergency Department Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) system is the most commonly used triage scoring system in Canada.
- 2.
Length of Stay (LOS) is the duration of time that the patient stays within the ED from the point of registration/triage to the moment of disposition and leaving the ED.
- 3.
Bed wait time begins from the point the disposition plan is to admit a patient to the point the patient leaves the ED to the ward when a bed is available.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the University of Winnipeg, Department of Applied Computer Science through the Major Research program and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through the Discovery Development Grant program, and in part by the University of Manitoba, College of Medicine.
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Camorlinga, P., Camorlinga, S. (2016). Leading the Emergency Department as a Complex Adaptive System. In: Sturmberg, J. (eds) The Value of Systems and Complexity Sciences for Healthcare. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26221-5_17
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