Lean Business Services is a government-owned company in Saudi Arabia and the leader in serving and developing innovations for the health sector. The company focuses on digitizing the Saudi health ecosystem and improving healthcare resource utilization.
Problem
In Saudi Arabia's healthcare system, a major change was happening. Previously, all health centers reported to one main body, the Ministry of Health. But now they were reorganizing into clusters, with each cluster managing several centers.
This change exposed a big problem. The old way of planning – deciding where centers should be, what services they should offer, and how many people they should serve – was out-of-date. It wasn't suitable for current needs or for future plans.
If the government continued with this old hospital capacity planning method, it would cause overcrowding at some centers and a waste of resources. This could lead to a poor experience for the patients using these services.
The proposed solution was to use healthcare simulation modeling. This method would help in assigning the right services to the right places, making sure healthcare services across the country were set up in the best way for now and the future.
Solution
Lean Business Services addressed Saudi Arabia’s healthcare challenges by creating an agent-based simulation model for capacity management in AnyLogic. This model helped in assigning people, or 'beneficiaries', to the appropriate primary healthcare centers. It also included hospital capacity planning for how many people each center could serve and tested various scenarios.
The model covered a vast scale, encompassing 33 million people and 2,700 primary healthcare centers across 21 clusters. Its aim was to solve problems like overcrowding, resource waste, and poor patient experiences. These issues occurred when healthcare capacity management was not taken into account.
The model consisted of two key parts: one for the beneficiaries and one for the primary healthcare centers. The beneficiaries' part looked at factors such as chronic diseases, insurance status, citizenship, and past visits. These factors determine how often people might need to visit a primary healthcare center. The primary healthcare centers' part focused on location, the number of people the centers could accept each day, and how full the facilities typically were.
The model worked in three steps.
- It would find the closest primary healthcare center for each visitor, considering the distance and the center’s capacity. If a center was full, the model identified the next closest one with available space.
- The model would calculate how many people would visit each primary healthcare center daily, redirecting people to different centers if one became too full.
- It could provide useful information, like which primary healthcare center each person should go to. It also indicated how busy each center would be. Additionally, it outlined what changes might occur if, for example, more people got sick or a primary healthcare center’s capacity changed.
Another important aspect was respecting data privacy. Lean used dummy data to build the model and designed it to easily integrate with existing data structures. This approach allowed the Saudi Ministry of Health to update and run the model with their own data safely.
Results
Lean's simulation model brought real improvements to Saudi Arabia's healthcare system. It created a safe, data-driven way to manage capacity in healthcare. This approach was essential for making smart, national-level decisions.
developed in AnyLogic – main view panel (click to enlarge)
By creating a simulation model, Lean not only improved the service level and patient experience but also ensured healthcare services were available where and when needed. It made it easier to understand where more resources were required, helping to avoid resource waste and ensuring that healthcare centers were ready and equipped as part of healthcare optimization. This, in turn, helped save money by having the right number of supplies.
Overall, Lean's model made a big difference in how healthcare services were planned and delivered. It showed the power of using simulation modeling to optimize Saudi Arabia's healthcare system for both the healthcare authorities and patients.
The case study was presented by Lean Business Services at the AnyLogic Conference 2023.
The slides are available as a PDF.
