An input-output model for resources planning in a medical care system

As medical care delivery systems grow in complexity, the understanding of interaction between entities within the system becomes a key aspect in resource planning. The model presented in this paper is geared to aiding resource planning both at the community or regional level and at the medical facility level. At the regional level the problem is related to the elimination of duplication and the sharing of services. At the medical facility level the concern is the balancing of the supply and demand of services among the departments. The framework of the model is a directed graph with nodes representing the service entities and branches representing the interrelationships. At the regional level, entities are hospitals, clinics, and centralized supportive units, such as the data center or the central laboratory. At the medical center level, entities are generally departments within the facility. An iterative procedure is used to simulate the propagation effect of a change on all entities. The model at the medical center level, as implemented in a minicomputer system, was applied to a real problem. The results strongly correlated with another, independent study.