Healthcare

Healthcare is the most complex area addressed in this book. It is a data-rich environment and data dependent. Often healthcare delivery is time critical; it experiences high demand and under surge conditions is reliant on individual or groups of human healthcare workers. These surge conditions arise from multiple sources, and while coping mechanisms are planned their occurrence is influenced by a wide range of external factors. For example, a major incident may occur during a period of already high demand. In this section, the reader is encouraged to consider how the Safety Risk Model (SRM) is influenced by large changes in demand. These changes induce secondary effects such as demand for consumables (e.g. Personnel Protective Equipment). They also induce tertiary effects along the supply chain. What ‘best fit’ set of ‘decision models’ would be appropriate and wow would these be modelled.