Simulation model for studying impact of demographic, temporal, and geographic factors on hospital demand

This paper reports on the results of a study that aims to develop the hybrid simulation model for estimating the level and structure of the demand for healthcare services. Our research is performed for the Wrocław Region (WR), the main administrative area of Lower Silesia, the fourth largest province in Poland. An aging chain approach is implemented in the system dynamic model to forecast the number of individuals belonging to the respective age-gender cohorts over the next 20 years. The discrete event simulation model predicts the expected volume of emergency arrivals at the WR hospitals and explores the relations between demand and demographical, temporal and geographical aspects. The projections of long-term population evolutions are performed on the aggregated data and analysis is focused on pre-specified age-gender cohorts. The demographic groups are described using parameters such as birth and death rates, life expectancy, and migration descriptors. The historical data on hospital admissions are drawn from National Health Fund regional branch registry. Our findings have important implications for the future decisions on distributions of the resources on the regional level.