Modeling and Simulation of Nuclear Medicine Patient Service Management in DEVS

Abstract

Increased demand for specialized healthcare services has been identified as one of the causes of increased healthcare costs in the US. Nuclear medicine, a sub-specialty of radiology, uses relatively new technology to diagnose and treat patients. Procedures (tests) in nuclear medicine require the use of radiopharmaceuticals with a limited half-life and involve several steps that are constrained by strict time windows and require multiple resources for completion. Consequently, managing patient service in nuclear medicine is a very challenging problem that has received very little research attention. In this paper, we present a discrete event system specification (DEVS) simulation model for nuclear medicine patient service management that considers both patient and management perspectives. DEVS is a formal modeling and simulation framework based on dynamical systems theory and provides well-defined concepts for coupling components, hierarchical and modular model construction, and an object-oriented substrate supporting repository reuse. We report on simulation results based on historical data using both patient and management performance measures. The results provide useful insights regarding the management of patient service in nuclear medicine. While this work focuses on nuclear medicine, results will find generality in other healthcare settings.