{"title":"Simulation modeling assessment and improvement of a COVID-19 mass vaccination center operations.","authors":"Abdessalem Jerbi, Faouzi Masmoudi","doi":"10.1177/00375497221135214","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The development of safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19 has been a turning point in the international effort to control this disease. However, vaccine development is only the first phase of the COVID-19 vaccination process. Correct planning of mass vaccination is important for any policy to immunize the population. For this purpose, it is necessary to set up and properly manage mass vaccination centers. This paper presents a discrete event simulation model of a real COVID-19 mass vaccination center located in Sfax, Tunisia. This model was used to evaluate the management of this center through different performance measures. Three person's arrival scenarios were considered and simulated to verify the response of this real vaccination center to arrival variability. A second model was proposed and simulated to improve the performances of the vaccination center. Like the first model, this one underwent the same evaluation process through the three arrivals scenarios. The simulation results show that both models respond well to the arrival's variability. Indeed, most of the arriving persons are vaccinated on time for all the studied scenarios. In addition, both models present moderate average vaccination and waiting times. However, the average utilization rates of operators are modest and need to be improved. Furthermore, both simulation models show a high average number of persons present in the vaccination center, which goes against the respect of the social distancing condition. Comparison between the two simulation models shows that the proposed model is more efficient than the actual one.</p>","PeriodicalId":49516,"journal":{"name":"Simulation-Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9679319/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Simulation-Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00375497221135214","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2022/11/19 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The development of safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19 has been a turning point in the international effort to control this disease. However, vaccine development is only the first phase of the COVID-19 vaccination process. Correct planning of mass vaccination is important for any policy to immunize the population. For this purpose, it is necessary to set up and properly manage mass vaccination centers. This paper presents a discrete event simulation model of a real COVID-19 mass vaccination center located in Sfax, Tunisia. This model was used to evaluate the management of this center through different performance measures. Three person's arrival scenarios were considered and simulated to verify the response of this real vaccination center to arrival variability. A second model was proposed and simulated to improve the performances of the vaccination center. Like the first model, this one underwent the same evaluation process through the three arrivals scenarios. The simulation results show that both models respond well to the arrival's variability. Indeed, most of the arriving persons are vaccinated on time for all the studied scenarios. In addition, both models present moderate average vaccination and waiting times. However, the average utilization rates of operators are modest and need to be improved. Furthermore, both simulation models show a high average number of persons present in the vaccination center, which goes against the respect of the social distancing condition. Comparison between the two simulation models shows that the proposed model is more efficient than the actual one.
期刊介绍:
SIMULATION is a peer-reviewed journal, which covers subjects including the modelling and simulation of: computer networking and communications, high performance computers, real-time systems, mobile and intelligent agents, simulation software, and language design, system engineering and design, aerospace, traffic systems, microelectronics, robotics, mechatronics, and air traffic and chemistry, physics, biology, medicine, biomedicine, sociology, and cognition.