Individual versus integrated simulation techniques in healthcare applications

Abstract

This paper compares between the individual and integrated simulation models used in the healthcare context. The paper focuses on the individual models using Agent-Based Simulation (ABS), Discrete Event Simulation (DES), and System Dynamics (SD), in addition to the integrated approaches as well as hybrid simulation, considering the advantages and limitations for each technique and the simulation software packages used for modeling. We demonstrate the advantage of the integrated approaches over the individual approaches. Integrated approaches help in modeling more complex healthcare systems and overcome the individual methods limitations. The paper concludes by a suggested framework for integrating the three methods in modeling of emergency rooms in order to achieve new objectives and improve performance.