A model based simulation toolkit for evaluating renal replacement policies

Abstract

Renal failure concerns progressive loss of kidney function. Renal Replacement Therapy (RRT) is a costly, long-running process that includes several decision points in different stages. Small changes in the protocol can impact significantly the expenditures and healthcare outcomes. Unfortunately, policy makers have very little support for benchmarking improvement alternatives. The existing models are designed to fit certain applications with preset parameters and design choices which do not match with the requirements of a policy analysis. A generic approach is required to analyze the effects of different design options adjustable to finer scales. To remedy this, this paper describes a novel toolkit for evaluating renal replacement policies, containing a parametrized colored Petri-Net which can be configured for the specifics of local settings. The model is made available for open access to overcome the non-replicability issue of existing models.