Barriers to implementing simulation in health care
Proceedings of the 199; Winter Simulation Conference, page 868--875. IEEE, (1994)DOI: 10.1109/WSC.1994.717447
Abstract
The members of this panel were asked to provide their perspectives on the barriers to implementing simulation in health care, and how to remove them. Some common barriers are presented throughout the discussions, such as the variety of players in the health care field and their different priorities, as well as their lack of familiarity with the process and terminology of simulation. However, each discussant lends a slightly different perspective to the problem. Brian Hakes focuses on the incentives in the health care industry and on health care managers' traditional reliance on simpler, deterministic analytic techniques for decision-making. Lou Keller discusses health care administrators' and providers' resistance to the unfamiliar and dehumanizing nature of simulation. William Lilegdon presents the argument that the traditional role of management engineering in hospitals does not foster the use of simulation. In addition, the number and variety of customerddecision makers in health care present competing priorities for the solutions suggested by simulation. JSal Mabrouk explains that management engineers can improve the promotion of simulation by "rounding out the edges" on their technical skills. Finally, Frank McGuire emphasizes the importance of implementing the recommendations from simulation experiments, and discusses the executive's and project manager's role in the implementation process.
