Home   Patient Flow  FlowModels  Percept   World Class Commissioning  Breast Screening  Simulation Tools
Mental Health  18 Weeks  'Lean Thinking'  Bed Management  Client Comments  More About Us  Contact Us  

The current emphasis on "World Class Commissioning" and the associated importance of simulation modelling has caused some discussion in the Healthcare community.

At the highest level the issue seems to be whether to address problems using Continuous Simulation (of which Systems Dynamics is a subset) or whether to use Discrete Event Simulation. There are fundamental differences between these two types of simulation and the two types address different problems.

In general, System Dynamics is the method we will first consider where the problem is focused on Populations (Demographics, Prevalence Rates, Public Health Interventions etc) . Discrete Event is the first choice of method when we need to develop simulation models focused on Patients and their needs (Admission to a Bed, contention for Therapist time etc).

A comparison of each methodology is given in a paper commissioned by the NHS Institute to which we contributed Case Study 3. Our own paper Populations v Patients explains the factors we would consider when advising you on the choice of technology for your project.  

An example of System Dynamics modelling is the  Dementia-Executive(pdf) which we have recently developed in association with our partner organisation, Mental Health Strategies.

Most problems being grappled with by Primary Care, Acute and Mental Health Trusts are probably focused on re-thinking the organisation of their services and potential re-allocation of Resources. This sort of problem is much more likely to be suitably addressed by out Discrete Event FlowModels .


Contact Us for a discussion on how this accumulated experience might be applied to your problems.

OPTIMISED RESOURCES : GREATER PATIENT CARE