Simulating health and social care delivery: Can the tension between individual patient path ways and strategic planning be addressed?

摘要

In this presentation we discuss the use of system dynamics to understand the delivery ofhealth and social care. We report on the development of a simulation model to addressthe issues of elderly care in a local health care system in the South East of England. Weexplore the appropriate level of aggregation for a model to address the policychallenges faced by local care organisations. While we recognise the value of a highlyaggregated systems dynamics approach and the danger of inappropriatedisaggregation, we argue in the presentation that features of the care system (such asthe recurrence of admissions to the hospital) make it desirable to include some aspectsof patient history in a flow model of patient path ways. We examine the feasibility of amore disaggregated approach and the influence of this choice for the understanding ofthe system and the development of beneficial policy options.