Health Successes Using Modelling | The Cumberland Initiative

Below are brief examples of successes in healthcare using modelling and simulation

Cost-saving diagnosis for heart failure

East Riding PCT modelled the introduction of the BNP blood test to diagnose heart failure (NICE guideline) and predicted savings and better outcomes. Subsequent implementation validated the model. The Lancashire and Cumbria Cardiac Network and the Pathology Commissioning Network, used computer simulation software to generalise this prediction to save more than £100,000 per PCT per year in their areas. Across the country, this change would save over £20-30M per annum and improve outcomes.

Reducing waiting times

Following the introduction of ‘free choice’, Stockport PCT had to manage a rise in GP referrals to secondary care, with consequent increases in waiting times. The team used Scenario Generator to model these pathways and identified how 97 per cent of patients could be seen within 28 days and 100% within 37 days (mashnet.info/casestudy/stockport-pct-%e2%80%93-understanding-demandcapacity-and-waiting-times/).

Planning end of life services

Leicestershire and Rutland Councils, working with NHS partners, used a systems modelling approach as part of the business case development and economic evaluation for an End of Life Care service. This helped to scale the service and anticipate future potential savings. The initial assumptions suggested the potential to save c.450 hospital admissions a year, with subsequent evaluation verifying these assumptions and delivering recurrent savings in the order of £1.5M a year from year 3 of the project. (www.thewholesystem.co.uk/library.asp?zone=learning&subzone=reading&expand_action=expand&projID=218&txtSearchCriteria=Leicester#218).

Running cancer care services

Examples abound in the US. The New York Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center uses an optimization model to plan radiotherapy treatments, resulting in savings of $millions¹. On a smaller scale, a primary care clinic in East Carolina used a simulation model to show that overbooking, which is standard practice in the airline industry, reduced no-shows and produced annual savings of around $300,000².

Web links showing modelling research

Below are a number of websites reporting benefits through this general approach. Some involve work by members of the Cumberland Initiative or their industrial network.

1. E.K. Lee & M. Zaider (2008). Operations Research Advances Cancer Therapeutics. Interfaces 38:5-25
2. J. Kros, S. Dellana and D. West (2009). Overbooking increases patient access at East Carolina University’s Student Health Services Clinic. Interfaces 39:271-87.