Skip to main content

Analytical Long-Term Care Capacity Planning

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Operations Research and Health Care Policy

Part of the book series: International Series in Operations Research & Management Science ((ISOR,volume 190))

  • 2361 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter discusses the use of analytical approaches for residential long-term care (LTC) capacity planning. The recommended method integrates demographic and survival analysis, discrete event simulation, and optimization. Through a case study based in British Columbia, Canada, it illustrates results of using this approach. Further, it discusses shortcomings of a fixed-ratio approach widely used in practice and the SIPP (stationary, independent, period by period) approach and its modifications developed in the call center literature. It also proposes an easy-to-use and effective planning method, the Average Flow Model. It concludes with a discussion of policy implications and extensions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. World Health Organization (2009) http://www.who.int/ageing/primary_health_care/en/index.html

  2. Statistics Canada (2009) http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/rt-td/as-eng.cfm

  3. BC Stats (2008) British Columbia population projection—PEOPLE 32. http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/

  4. Canadian Medical Association (2009) http://www.cma.ca/multimedia/CMA/Content_Images/Inside_cma/WhatWePublish/LeadershipSeries/English/pg17EC.pdf

  5. Canadian Institute for Health Information (2009) http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/

  6. Wiener JM, Stevenson DG, Goldenson SM (1998) Controlling the supply of long-term care providers at the state level. Occasional Paper Number 22, Urban Institute, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  7. West Virginia Health Care Authority (2003) Long term care task force. http://www. hcawv.org/PolicyPlan/wr16.htm

  8. Legislative Assembly of British Columbia (2006) http://www.llbc.leg.bc.ca/Public/PubDocs/bcdocs/401348/Creating Patient Flow.pdf

  9. Canadian Union of Public Employees (2009) Residential long-term care in Canada: our vision for better seniors’ care. http://www cupe.ca/updir/CUPE-long-term-care-seniors-care-vision.pdf

  10. Gibson D, Liu Z (2008) Planning ratios and population growth: will there be a shortfall in residential aged care by 2021? Australas J Ageing 14(2):57–62

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Cohen M, Jeremy T, Baumbusch J (2009) An uncertain future for seniors: BC’s restructuring of home and community health care, 2001–2008. http://www.policyalternatives.ca/reports/2009/04/uncertain future

  12. Zhang Y, Puterman ML, Nelson M, Atkins D (2012) A simulation optimization approach to long-term care capacity planning. Oper Res 60(2):1–13

    Google Scholar 

  13. Zhang Y, Puterman ML, Atkins D (2012) Residential long-term care capacity planning: the shortcomings of ratio-based forecasts. Healthc Policy 7(4):68–81

    Google Scholar 

  14. Hare WL, Alimadad A, Dodd H, Ferguson R, Rutherford A (2009) A deterministic model of home and community care client counts in British Columbia. Health Care Manag Sci 12(1):80–98

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Lin F, Kong N, Lawley M (2012) Capacity planning for publicly funded community based long-term care services. In: Johnson MP (ed) Community-based operations research. International series in operations research & management science, vol 167. Springer, New York, pp 297–315

    Google Scholar 

  16. Ridge JC, Jones SK, Nielsen MS, Shahani AK (1998) Capacity planning for intensive care units. Eur J Oper Res 105:346–355

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Green LV (2003) How many hospital beds? Inquiry 39:400–412

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Harper PR, Shahani AK (2002) Modelling for the planning and management of bed capacities in hospitals. J Oper Res Soc 53(1):11–18

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Kao EPC, Tung GG (1981) Bed allocation in a public health care delivery system. Manag Sci 27(5):507–520

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Vassilacopoulos G (1985) A simulation model for bed allocation to hospital inpatient departments. Simulation 45:233–241

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Smith-Daniels VL, Schweikhart SB, Smith-Daniels DE (1988) Capacity management in health care services: review and future research directions. Decis Sci 19:898–919

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Green LV (2004) Capacity planning and management in hospitals. In: Brandeau ML, Sainfort F, Pierskalla WP (eds) Operations research and health care: a handbook of methods and applications. Kluwer, London

    Google Scholar 

  23. Green LV, Kolesar PJ, Soares J (2001) Improving the SIPP approach for staffing service systems that have cyclic demand. Oper Res 49(4):549–564

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Green LV, Kolesar PJ (1991) The pointwise stationary approximation for queues with nonstationary arrivals. Manag Sci 37(1):84–97

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Green LV, Kolesar PJ, Svoronos A (1991) Some effects of nonstationarity on multiserver Markovian queuing systems. Oper Res 39(3):502–511

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Ingolfsson A, Haque MA, Umnikov A (2002) Accounting for time-varying queueing effects in workforce scheduling. Eur J Oper Res 139(3):585–597

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Jennings OB, Mandelbaum A, Massey WA, Whitt W (1996) Server staffing to meet time-varying demand. Manag Sci 42(10):1383–1394

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Ingolfsson A, Akhmetshina E, Budge S, Li Y, Wu X (2007) A survey and experimental comparison of service level approximation methods for non-stationary M(t)/M/s(t) queueing systems. INFORMS J Comput 19(2):201–214

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Gans N, Koole G, Mandelbaum A (2003) Telephone call centers: tutorial, review and research prospects. Manuf Serv Oper Manag 5(2):79–141

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Green LV, Kolesar PJ, Whitt W (2007) Coping with time-varying demand when setting staffing requirements for a service system. Prod Oper Manag 16(1):13–39

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Kwan SK, Davis MM, Greenwood AG (1988) A simulation model for determining variable worker requirements in a service operation with time-dependent customer demand. Queueing Syst 3:265–276

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Whitt W (1991) The pointwise stationary approximation for Mt/Mt/s queues is asymptotically correct as the rates increase. Manag Sci 37(3):307–314

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Atlason J, Epelman MA, Henderson SG (2008) Optimizing call center staffing using simulation and analytic center cutting-plane methods. ManagSci 54(2):295–309

    Google Scholar 

  34. Parlar M, Sharafali M (2008) Dynamic allocation of airline check-in counters: a queueing optimization approach. Manag Sci 54(8):1410–1424

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. De Vericourt F, Jennings O (2011) Nurse staffing in medical units: a queueing perspective. Oper Res 59:1320–1331

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Yankovic N, Green LV (2011) Identifying good nursing levels: a queuing approach. Oper Res 59:942–955

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Feldman Z, Mandelbaum A, Massey WA, Whitt W (2008) Staffing of time-varying queues to achieve time-stable performance. Manag Sci 54:324–338

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Xie H, Chaussalet TJ, Millard PH (2006) A model-based approach to the analysis of patterns of length of stay in institutional long-term care. IEEE Trans Inf Technol Biomed 10(3):512–518

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Miller RG (1981) Simultaneous statistical inference, 2nd edn. Springer, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  40. Klein JP, Moeschberger ML (2003) Survival analysis, techniques for censored and truncated data, 2nd edn. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  41. Fu MC (2002) Optimization for simulation: theory vs. practice. INFORMS J Comput 14(3):192–215

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Tekin E, Sabuncuoglu I (2004) Simulation optimization: a comprehensive review on theory and applications. IIE Trans 36:1067–1081

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Henderson SG, Nelson BL (2006) Handbooks in operations research and management science: simulation. Elsevier, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  44. Hong LJ, Nelson BL (2009) A brief introduction to optimization via simulation. Winter Simulation Conference Proceedings, pp 75–85

    Google Scholar 

  45. Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) (2009) http://www.viha.ca/NR/rdonlyres/B5AEA945-8240-47B7-8BC2-63D593924350/0/residential care admissions.pdf

  46. Little JDC (1961) A proof of the queueing formula L = λW. Oper Res 9:383–387

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We gratefully thank Steve Atkinson, Director of Operations Research, Vancouver Island Health Authority, Peter Kafka, Chief Executive Officer of the Louis Brier Home and Hospital for providing data and many helpful discussions. This research has been partially supported by NSERC grant RGPIN 5527.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martin L. Puterman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Zhang, Y., Puterman, M.L. (2013). Analytical Long-Term Care Capacity Planning. In: Zaric, G. (eds) Operations Research and Health Care Policy. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, vol 190. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6507-2_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics