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Erik Giesen, Wolfgang Ketter, and Rob Zuidwijk. An Agent-based Approach to Improving Resource Allocation in the Dutch Youth Health Care Sector. In Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), pp. 2403–2415, Verona, Italy, July 2009.
We show how agent-based simulation is used for analyzing different queuing strategies in the youth health care sector. The simulation model represents an authentic business case and is parameterized with actual market data. We discuss the differences between four queuing strategies which are based on push/pull allocation and centralized/decentralized queuing strategies. The model incorporates, among others, a withdrawal and return mechanism, a non-stationary Poisson arrival process, and a preference algorithm to include a care provider's case preference. The investigated system accommodates extensive waiting lines which are currently solely judged on their length. We have identified that performance measurement in youth health care should not be focused on queue lengths alone, but should include a case urgency parameter as well. The simulation results, together with contextual data obtained from stakeholder interviews, indicate that a push strategy with a centralized queue suites the sector best. Most related research in health care focuses on queuing theory which fails to address the complexity of the case. Our simulation approach incorporates additional complexities of the case at hand which turn out to be relevant for the queuing strategy decision. We validate the model and strategies by comparison with real market data and field expert discussions.
@InProceedings{Giesen09ECIS,
author = "Erik Giesen and Wolfgang Ketter and Rob Zuidwijk",
title = "An Agent-based Approach to Improving Resource Allocation
in the Dutch Youth Health Care Sector",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS)",
pages = "2403--2415",
year = "2009",
address = {Verona, Italy},
month = {July},
abstract={We show how agent-based simulation is used for analyzing different queuing
strategies in the youth health care sector. The simulation model represents
an authentic business case and is parameterized with actual market data. We
discuss the differences between four queuing strategies which are based on
push/pull allocation and centralized/decentralized queuing strategies.
The model incorporates, among others, a withdrawal and return mechanism, a
non-stationary Poisson arrival process, and a preference algorithm to
include a care provider's case preference. The investigated system accommodates
extensive waiting lines which are currently solely judged on their length. We
have identified that performance measurement in youth health care should not be
focused on queue lengths alone, but should include a case urgency parameter as well.
The simulation results, together with contextual data obtained from stakeholder
interviews, indicate that a push strategy with a centralized queue suites the sector
best. Most related research in health care focuses on queuing theory which fails to
address the complexity of the case. Our simulation approach incorporates additional
complexities of the case at hand which turn out to be relevant for the queuing
strategy decision. We validate the model and strategies by comparison with real market
data and field expert discussions.},
bib2html_pubtype = {Refereed Conference},
bib2html_rescat = {Agents: Health Care},
}
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