System Dynamics modeling in health care

Abstract

The System Dynamics modeling technique has been extensively applied to health care problems. Most of these applications have revealed insights to planners and policy-makers that would not have arisen without a System Dynamics model. The distinctive characteristics of System Dynamics that enabled these insights to be developed have also been the source of some problems as well. These problems have hindered the implementation of results from certain health care modeling efforts and have kept System Dynamics from being more broadly and extensively applied in the health care field. This paper focuses on both the strengths System Dynamics has shown in its applications to health care and the difficulties that have been encountered. As background to the discussion of strengths and problems, the paper begins with a general description of the System Dynamics approach and brief history of its development and application to health care.