Health Sector Modelling

Systems tools for health sector innovation.

Delivering effective, equitable and sustainable health services is a complex task that is full of trade-offs; resources pushed in one direction mean resources absent in another; more services for one group, means less for another. Leadership in this environment means weighing up options and making decisions.

Doing this successfully is a challenge and requires effective and efficient ways of engaging stakeholders. However, doing so without evidence to focus the discussion, often leads to protracted debates that deliver neither understanding nor progress. If stakeholders are to be engaged in constructive ways the engagement process needs to be structured to support discussion rather than posturing. Viewpoints, often strongly held, need to be matched against the evidence available and all perspectives need to be heard. What is needed is good discourse supported by good evidence.

However, when systems are complex, discussions about how to solve a problem can bog down in disagreements about the likely effects of a given action. Discussions among stakeholders whose perspectives differ greatly or who hold different levels of authority or status may favour the inclusion of some ideas over others. Dynamic Decision Support, utilising simulation modelling, helps to ‘level the playing field’ by providing immediate, relevant feedback about the effect of a suggested policy or strategy. It provides ‘virtual worlds’ that allow people to discover for themselves how the system actually works and what the consequences are of different actions.

As a tool for evaluating policy options and implementation plans, simulation models enforce an internal consistency that is difficult to achieve in discussion. They help people go beyond opinions to a more constructive debate with the evidence, and a model built on a set of shared assumptions can refocus disagreements about the outcome of a given strategy to conversations about the possible scenarios, agreeing the preferred option and what actions are most likely to deliver it.

Whether your task involves policy development or management of service delivery, Synergia’s capability in the collaborative development of dynamic simulation models, to support more effective decision-making, can help you think and plan more effectively.