System Dynamics Modeling for Public Health Bed Capacity Planning

Abstract

The system dynamics approach was developed by Jay Forrester from MIT during 1950s to analyze the complex behavior in administration with computer simulation in social sciences. System dynamics is a form of the systems approach as a methodology to understand the dynamic behavior of complex systems. The basis of system dynamics is to understand how system structures cause system behavior and system events. This chapter aims to develop a system dynamic model. System dynamics approach was adopted to build a bed capacity management model using a software package, Vensim.