Review of modelling approaches for healthcare simulation

The goal of this paper is to present a summary of various simulation methods applied to health services and to discuss several internal and external determinants for selecting a particular simulation method to study a given managerial problem within the healthcare system. The analysis presented is based on a literature survey and considers four primary simulation techniques: Monte Carlo, discrete -event simulation, agent-based simulation and system dynamics. A range of internal and external factors are reviewed and characterised to determine the most suitable simulation technique for addressing a particular healthcare decision problem.