Towards a framework for healthcare simulation

The changing needs of healthcare provision around the world are forcing service designers and decision makers to adopt new tools in design and evaluation of processes. Apart from the pressure to deliver better services from constrained resources, the increasing use of metrics to monitor and manage care delivery, also means that service providers require a clearer idea of how a service improvement will perform prior to implementation. In turn, this opens up an opportunity for a much greater use of simulation and modeling techniques, provided they can be set within an appropriate framework. This paper discusses and describes a research project aimed at conducting pilot work for developing a framework that facilitates joined up thinking and enables integrative modeling. An approach to achieving such an end is described and progress to date is reported. Since this is an ongoing project, some of the latest results are presented at the conference.