Abstract
Healthcare is a complex adaptive system. This paper discusses, healthcare in the context of complex systems architecture and an agent based modeling framework. The paper demonstrates complications of healthcare system improvement and it’s impact on patient safety, economics and workloads. Further an application of safety dynamics model proposed by Cook and Rasmussen4 is explored using a hypothetical simulation of an emergency department. By means of simulation, this paper demonstrates the nonlinear behaviors of a health service unit and its complexities; and how the safety dynamic model may be used to evaluate various aspects of healthcare. Further work is required to apply this concept in a ‘real life environment’ and its consequence to societal, organizational and operational levels of healthcare.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Reference
Anderson, RA Jr, & RRM 2000, ‘Managing health care organizations: Where professionalism meets complexity science’, Health Care Management Review, vol. 25, no. 1, p. 83.
Bar-Yam, Y, Ramalingam, C, Burlingame, L & Ogata, C 2004., Making things work: solving complex problems in a complex world, NECSI, Knowledge Press, Cambridge, MA
Brailsford, SC, Churilov, L & Liew, SK 2003, ‘Treating Ailing Emergency Departments with Simulation: An Integrated Perspectives’, paper presented to 2003 WESTERN MULTICONFERENCE, ORLANDO, FLORIDA, USA.
Cook, R & Rasmussen, J 2005, ‘“Going solid”: a model of system dynamics and consequences for patient safety’, Quality & Safety in Health Care, vol. 14, no. 2, p. 130.
Fone, D, Hollinghurst, S, Temple, M, Round, A, Lester, N, Weightman, A, Roberts, K, Coyle, E, Bevan, G & Palmer, S 2003, ‘Systematic review of the use and value of computer simulation modelling in population health and health care delivery’, Journal of Public Health Medicine, vol. 25, no. 4, p. 325.
Gharajedaghi, J 1999, Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity: a platform for designing business architecture, Butterworth-Heinemann.
Jun, JB, Jacobson, SH & Swisher, JR 1999, ‘Application of discrete-event simulation in health care clinics: A survey’, The Journal of the Operational Research Society, vol. 50, no. 2, p. 109.
Koelling, P & Schwandt, MJ 2005, ‘HEALTH SYSTEMS: A DYNAMIC SYSTEM-BENEFITS FROM SYSTEM DYNAMICS’, paper presented to Proceedings of the 2005 Winter Simulation Conference, Orlando, Florida, USA.
Morecroft, J & Stewart, R 2005, ‘Explaining Puzzling Dynamics: Comparing the Use of System Dynamics and Discrete-Event Simulation’, paper presented to The 23rd International Conference of the System Dynamics Society, Boston USA.
Smith, M & Feied, C 1999, The Emergency Department as a Complex System, http://www.necsi.org, http://www.necsi.org:16080/research/management/health/index.html.
Tan, J, Wen, HJ & Awad, N 2005, ‘Health care and services delivery systems as complex adaptive systems’, Commun. ACM, vol. 48, no. 5, pp. 36–44.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kanagarajah, A.K., Lindsay, P., Miller, A., Parker, D. (2010). An Exploration into the Uses of Agent-Based Modeling to Improve Quality of Healthcare. In: Minai, A., Braha, D., Bar-Yam, Y. (eds) Unifying Themes in Complex Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85081-6_58
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85081-6_58
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-85080-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-85081-6
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)