Planning Capacity for Mental Health and Addiction Services in the Emergency Department: A Discrete-Event Simulation Approach

Table 4

Scenario details.

Scenario ID	Question	Experimental details
A	What will happen in fiscal years 2017 and 2018 given the expected forecasted demand?	The interarrival rates for each patient group were adjusted to mimic the numbers obtained by demand forecasting (see Section 4.1)
B	What will happen if the number of alcohol- and opioid-related visits to the ED is reduced through new programs such as META : PHI?	Alcohol- and opioid-simulated interarrival rates were decreased randomly by 10% and 30%, as well as by 45% and 63% (similar to the numbers obtained by META : PHI program [19, 20])
C	What will happen if the number of cannabis-related visits to ED increases/decreases, following a similar pattern to other places after cannabis legalization?	To replicate Colorado’s experience [28, 45], pretending that cannabis legalization happened in Canada at the end of 2016, cannabis-simulated interarrival rates were adjusted by +19% for 2017, and −27% for 2018.
D	What will happen if PESU bed capacity increases?	The number of beds in the PESU was increased from the initial 6 to 7, 8, 9, and 10 beds.
E	What will happen if PESU bed capacity is adjusted considering the expected growth in demand for 2017 and 2018?	The number of beds in the PESU was adjusted between 7 and 10 while changing interarrival rates to mimic the predicted demand in 2017 and 2018