Healthcare Modelling
People involved
Dr Dafydd Evans
Mr Angelico Fetta
Prof. Jeff Griffiths
Prof. Paul Harper
Dr Vince Knight
Miss Izabela Komenda
Dr Rhyd Lewis
Dr John Minty
Miss Leanne Smith
Dr Jonathan Thompson
Miss Cheryl Voake
Dr Janet Williams
Miss Julie Williams
Research activities
Cardiff is renowned for its long and successful tradition of research in this field. We have a large and active group of staff and postgraduate research students working on numerous health-related topics, including planning and management of healthcare services, epidemiology, and prevention, early detection and treatment of disease. Professor Harper is also Director of Health Modelling Centre Cymru (hmc2).
Research projects typically comprise of a mixture of theoretical and practical investigations, and many projects have been funded by external organisations, including various funding councils, Department of Health, NHS Information Centre, NHS Trusts and Primary Care Trusts.
Particular contributions include stochastic models for integrated healthcare resource systems (hospital bed capacities, theatre scheduling and workforce planning), stochastic facility location problems, conditional phase-type modelling, patient choice, combined data mining and simulation methodologies, modelling the cost-effectiveness of various strategies for preventing and screening for disease including breast cancer, colorectal cancer, HIV/AIDS and diabetic retinopathy, targeted screening programmes for Chlamydia, small world models for the dynamics of HIV infection, and novel research on healthcare behavioural modelling.
Several staff within the group are members of the European Working Group on Operational Research Applied to Health Services (ORAHS), and members of the Steering Group of the EPSRC funded Network in Healthcare Modelling and Simulation (MASHnet). Prof. Harper’s work on screening for Chlamydia was awarded the 2006 OR Society’s Goodeve Medal for the best paper published in the Journal of the Operational Research Society.
The 2011 ORAHS conference will be held in Cardiff (Organising team: Paul Harper, Janet Williams, Vince Knight and Israel Vieira).
Current and recent projects include:
- Modelling of hospital waiting lists for the National Assembly Government for Wales;
- Intensive care provision for the University of Wales Hospital;
- Operating theatre performance and modelling of bed-blocking (various hospitals);
- Modelling of rehabilitation services (Rookwood hospital);
- Forecasting of ambulance demand, workforce rostering and deployment of vehicles (Welsh Ambulance Service).
- Accident and Emergency department reconfiguration (UHW).
- An EPSRC-funded project to forecasting hospital admissions linked to weather events (with the Met Office).
- An EPSRC-funded project "RIGHT" (Research Into Global Healthcare Tools) – creating a toolkit of techniques for NHS service delivery (with Brunel, Cambridge, Southampton and Ulster);
- Workforce planning model for anaesthetists (with Cardiff and Vale University LHB and NLIAH, Wales).
- Modelling treatment effects in the HIV/AIDS Epidemic as part of a European Union concerted action;
- Development of data mining and decision tree tools for assisting the NHS Information Centre with the redesign of Healthcare Resource Groups (HRGs);
- Modelling the future demand for residential care in an ageing population;
- Novel research on incorporating human behavioural factors in simulation models with application to breast cancer screening;
- Facility-location modelling in collaboration with Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (community care centres), Kings College London (dental services) and Department of Health (cardiac services, and cleft lip and palette);
- Modelling nurse skill-mix needs for inpatient wards and in the community (intermediate care);
- Research on screening for Chlamydia (St. Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth);
References
Williams JL, Gillard JW, Harper PR and Knight VA (2010), “Forecasting Welsh Ambulance Demand using Singular Spectrum Analysis”. In Proceedings of the 2010 International ORAHS Conference, edited by Testi et al., FrancoAngeli (Milan).
Vieira IT, Harper PR, Cheng RCH and de Senna V (2010), “Small World Network Models of the Dynamics of HIV Infection”. Annals of Operational Research. 178: 173-200.
Harper PR, Powel NP and Williams JE (2010). “Modelling the Size and Skill-mix of Hospital Nursing Teams”. Journal of the Operational Research Society. 61: 768-779.
Kleinman ER, Harper PR and Gallagher JE (2009). ”Trends in NHS Primary Dental Care for Older People in England: implications for the future”. Gerodontology26 (3): 193 - 201
Brailsford, S., Harper, P., Patel, B., and Pitt, M. (2009) “An Analysis of the Academic Literature on Simulation and Modeling in Healthcare”. Journal of Simulation. 3: 130-140.
Smith H.K, Harper P.R and Potts C.N (2009). “Planning Sustainable Community Health Schemes in Rural Areas of Developing Countries”. European Journal of Operational Research. 193: 768-777.
Harper PR and Leite Jr E (2008), “TreeWorks: Advances in Scalable Decision Trees”. International Journal of Healthcare Information Systems and Informatics 3 (4).
Evenden D, Harper PR, Brailsford SC and Harindra V (2006), “Improving the Cost-Effectiveness of Chlamydia Screening with Targeted Screening Strategies”. Journal of the Operational Research Society. 57: 1400-1412.
Griffiths JD, Price-Lloyd N, Smithies M and Williams JE (2006), A Queueing Model of Activities in an Intensive Care Unit. IMA J. of Management Mathematics, 2006, 277-288, 17 (3).
Harper PR and Winslett DJ (2006), “Classification Trees: A Possible Method for Maternity Risk Assessment”. European Journal of Operational Research 169: 146-156.
Williams J E, Griffiths J D, Price-Lloyd N and Smithies M (2005), Modelling the requirement for supplementary nurses in an intensive care unit, J. of the Operational Research Society, 126-133, 56 (2).
Harper PR (2002), “A Framework for Operational Modelling of Hospital Resources”. Health Care Management Science. 5 (3): 165-173.
Harper PR and Shahani AK (2002), “Modelling for the Planning and Management of Bed Capacities in Hospitals”. Journal of the Operational Research Society. 53 (1): 11-18