System dynamics and agent-based simulation for prospective health technology assessments*

Abstract

Healthcare innovations open new treatment possibilities for patients and offer potentials to increase their life quality. But it is also possible that a new product will have negative influences on patient’s life quality, if it has not been checked before. To prevent latter cases three already established methods can be used in order to assess healthcare technologies and to inform regulatory agencies. But these tools share a common problem. They can only be applied when a product is already developed and high costs have been already produced. This work describes Prospective Health Technology Assessment. This approach uses hybrid simulation techniques in order to learn about the impacts of a new innovation before a product has been developed. System Dynamics is used to perform high-level simulation and Agent-Based Simulation allows to model individual behavior of persons.