Discrete Event Simulation

UBC health economics scientists are experts in discrete event simulation (DES), a modeling technique that provides a more straightforward, intuitive way to simulate clinical reality. This type of modeling simulates the experience of actual patients in a way that is intuitive. While DES enjoys widespread acceptance in many other industries, it has only recently been applied to medicine. Its ability to overcome many of the restrictions imposed by other methodologies as well as its acceptance by regulatory agencies has led many analysts to adopt the technique.

UBC is the leading authority of DES as applied to health economics. Our experts introduced this method to the health care industry in 2000. Our experts teach courses on the methodology and implementation of this modeling approach to researchers around the globe.

Benefits of using DES:

  • Represents clinical reality
  • Presents the course of disease naturally with few restrictions
  • Is flexible: no mutually exclusive branches or states required
  • Follows the natural concept of time, the simulation clock keeps track of the passage of time (no fixed cycles)
  • Offers flexibility handling perspectives and sensitivity analyses
  • Permits transparency (eliminates the “black box”)
  • Allows queuing (e.g, if a health resource is not available at a given time)
  • Enables modeling of limited resources, bottlenecks, if applicable to the problem
  • Defines patients as explicit elements with specific attributes (e.g, sex, age, event history) that can be modified over time
  • Provides option of updating variables continuously or at specific time periods
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