FAQ’s

Why do successful healthcare organizations use simulation?

1. Visually identify process inefficiencies
2. Test alternative scenarios
3. Make better decisions
4. You can design, validate, and implement your ideas without disturbing your current operation.

What can you get by simulating?

1. Improve administrative and operational efficiency
2. Reduce cost and maximize ROI
3. Validate process change or facility expansion
4. Predict the impact of staffing changes or equipment upgrades

When should you use simulation?

1. To visualize a proposed system or facility layout
2. Answer “what if” questions
3. Explore the implications of operational changes
4. Demonstrate the effectiveness of a new design or process
5. Investigate the impact of changes in the marketplace

How can a simulation tool help develop system designs?

1. Allows the team to evaluate the effectiveness of their design and to determine its impact
2. It can help any team assess the impact of their design against stated process performance measures, operational measures, and customer experience measures

How do we assure quality?

1. The nature of our methodology ensures that we first collect data about the performance of the actual system
2. We validate that data with our clients and customers
3. We then build a model that is verified against the validated data

What data are needed?

1. Simulation models require both process maps describing the activities in a process and data describing how individual pieces of work flow through the system
2. For each activity, we look at the resources used (how many, how do different resources work together), the processing time required, and the business rules for items entering and leaving the activity