THE IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS ON FUTURE HOSPITAL DEMAND BASED ON A HYBRID SIMULATION MODEL

摘要

This study examines how changes in the age structure of Polish population inhabiting an administrative region, the Wrocław Region (WR), will affect the demand for healthcare services during the period 2016-2017. We constructed a hybrid simulation model that operates on two submodels. The system dynamics submodel simulates the evolution of population using an aging chain approach to forecast the number of individuals belonging to the respective age-gender cohorts. On the other hand, the discrete event submodel forecasts the number of patients in and number of treatments generated by the respective age-groups. We found that the effect of the WR population growth on the total healthcare demand will be small; however, it will have a larger impact on the number of elderly patients and the volume of more expensive services delivered in WR hospitals.