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Discrete-Event Simulation of Health care Systems

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Abstract

Over the past 40 years, health care organizations have faced ever-increasing pressures to deliver quality care while facing rising costs, lower reimbursements, and new regulatory demands. Discrete-event simulation has become a popular and effective decision-making tool for the optimal allocation of scarce health care resources to improve patient flow, while minimizing health care delivery costs and increasing patient satisfaction. The proliferation of increasingly sophisticated discrete-event simulation software packages has resulted in a large number of new application opportunities, including more complex implementations. In addition, combined optimization and simulation tools allow decision-makers to quickly determine optimal system configurations, even for complex integrated facilities. This chapter provides an overview of discrete-event simulation modeling applications to health care clinics and integrated health care systems (e.g., hospitals, outpatient clinics, emergency departments, and pharmacies) over the past 40 years.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Dr. R.W. Hall for his comments and feedback on an earlier draft of this chapter, resulting in a significantly improved final version. The first author has been supported in part by the National Science Foundation (DMI-0222597, DMI-0457176).

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Jacobson, S.H., Hall, S.N., Swisher, J.R. (2013). Discrete-Event Simulation of Health care Systems. In: Hall, R. (eds) Patient Flow. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, vol 206. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9512-3_12

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