Simulating Care Outside of Hospital

Presenter: Claire Cordeaux, SIMUL8 Healthcare Director

Delivering care outside of the hospital is seen as one of the ways of managing increasing demand for healthcare services, whilst also improving patient outcomes. Effective delivery means a huge rethink of service delivery as a system as well as by organizations, and whilst there are some blueprints for good practice, on the whole the evidence for system-wide management is sketchy.

Simulation is a really helpful technique to use when trying to predict uncertain futures. Bringing together clinical evidence for best practice with available data for current service utilization for population groups and ideas for improvement into a simulation can help drive forward decision-making for change, underpinned with the best evidence available.

This workshop will draw on a variety of projects and models to consider how simulation can help to model the impact of care outside hospital. From prevention activity (planning a new obesity and weight management service), to applying an annual capitated tariff for people with chronic disease, to managing workload in community teams, we will examine how simulation has been helping to understand the current position and to develop and negotiate a plan for change across health systems.