MetSim: a Hospital Simulation Support Tool Using Meteorological Information to Improve the Planning and Management of Health Services

预测天气的能力提供了提供有价值的信息的潜力，这些信息可用于规划卫生服务。例如，设想一个医院规划系统能够根据气象事件(如2009年2月初的寒流)预测不同服务需求的波动。这样的工具将为国民健康保险制度和健康结果带来实质性的好处。具体地说，适当使用气象情报将有助于：1.通过降低发病率和死亡率改善健康，并总体上改善健康结果。通过更好地预测天气事件造成的医院压力，从而使医院管理人员能够预测并更好地为这种波动做好准备，从而改善获得服务的机会。这项研究将探索和量化天气模式和极端天气事件之间的关系，以及它们对各种健康状况的影响，如心脏病发作、中风、哮喘和骨折。例如，人们认为，寒冷温度的突然升高会导致血液略有增稠，血压升高，这可能会引发脆弱患者的心脏病发作或中风。还有许多其他报告(观察到)的趋势，如与雷暴有关的哮喘。例如，英格兰东南部的一场雷雨导致640名严重哮喘患者被送往医院，这一数字是平时的十倍。通过这种方式将天气和健康联系起来，我们可以通过创建一个早期预警系统来帮助拯救生命或将发病风险降至最低，该系统可以确保高危患者得到充分的信息，并获得足够的药物和建议。此外，这项研究将利用计算机模拟技术和统计模型，并应用它们的使用来创建一种新的医院运营能力支持工具(MetSim)，该工具将利用气象预报和NHS医院数据向医院提供有关预计的紧急入院水平的信息，并就需求的突然激增和每日波动向医院发出警报。通过以这种方式预测需求，MetSim将使医院经理能够更密切地了解短期规划范围内产生的资源需求，并帮助做出规划决策，如取消选择性入院。鉴于医院资源的提供是一个相当大的公众和政治关注的问题，并一直是广泛辩论的主题，这项研究将帮助NHS更有效和高效地规划和管理他们的医疗服务。MetSim的另一个好处是它可以作为公共健康警告系统。区域战略卫生当局或初级保健信托基金可以利用健康与天气的相关性来提醒高危人群。通过确保这些人更好地了解即将到来的风险，并获得足够的药物和适当的医疗建议，这可能会对公众健康产生重大好处。在这项研究中评估的健康状况(包括心脏病、中风、急性支气管炎、骨折和肺炎)的治疗占NHS预算的很大比例。例如，英国的中风和心脏病发病率是世界上最高的之一，仅这两种疾病每年就给NHS造成了约183亿英镑的损失。使用MetSim来防止这些患者入院或改善其中一小部分患者的健康状况，可以为NHS Trust带来显著的成本节约。这项新颖而有价值的研究涉及运筹学和统计方面的专家协作团队，得到了Met Office、南安普顿大学医院NHS Trust和加的夫和淡水河谷NHS Trust的合作和支持。这三个组织对这项研究的支持、承诺和兴奋程度如此之高，以至于他们总共承诺为整个项目的成本支付6万英镑。

The ability to predict weather offers the potential to provide valuable information that can be used in planning health services. For example, imagine a hospital planning system that was able to predict fluctuations in demand for different services as a consequence of predictions of meteorological events such as the early February cold spell in 2009. Such a tool would result in a substantial benefit to both the NHS and health outcomes. Specifically, appropriate use of meteorological intelligence would help to:1. Improve health by reducing morbidity and mortality rates, and generally improving health outcomes.2. Improve access to services by better predicting hospital pressures due to weather events, thus allowing for hospital mangers to anticipate and better prepare for such fluctuations. This research will explore and quantify the relationship between weather patterns and extreme weather events, and their impact on various health conditions, such a heart attacks, stroke, asthma, and fractures. For example, it is thought that a sudden surge in cold temperature can cause blood to thicken slightly and blood pressure to increase, which can trigger a heart attack or stroke in vulnerable patients. There are many other reported (observed) trends such as thunderstorm-related asthma. A thunderstorm in South East England, for example, saw 640 patients presenting with severe asthma to hospital, ten times the usual number. By linking weather and health in this way, we can help save lives or minimise the risk of morbidity by creating an early warning system that can ensure at-risk patients are well informed and have sufficient medication and advice. Furthermore, this research will utilise computer simulation techniques and statistical models and apply their use to create a novel hospital operational capacity support tool (MetSim) that will utilise meteorological forecasts alongside NHS hospital data to provide information to hospitals on expected levels of emergency admissions and to alert them of sudden surges in demand and daily fluctuations. By forecasting demand in this manner, MetSim will allow hospital managers to understand more closely resulting resource needs over the short-term planning horizon and assist in planning decisions such as cancellation of elective admissions. Given that the provision of hospital resources is a matter of considerable public and political concern and has been the subject of widespread debate, this research will help the NHS more effectively and efficiently plan and manage their health services.A further benefit of MetSim is that it can act as a public health warning system. Health-weather correlations could be used by regional Strategic Health Authorities or Primary Care Trusts to alert at-risk populations. This could have significant public health benefits by ensuring such people are better informed about the forthcoming risks and have sufficient medication and appropriate medical advice. Treating patients for the health conditions evaluated in this research (to include heart disease, stroke, acute bronchitis, fractures and pneumonia) accounts for a significant proportion of the NHS budget. For example, stroke and heart disease incidence in the UK is amongst the highest in the world and these two conditions alone cost the NHS an estimated 18.3 billion annually. Using MetSim to prevent hospital admissions or improving health outcomes for even a small percentage of these patients could result in significant costs savings to NHS Trusts.This novel and valuable research involves a collaborative team of specialists in Operational Research and Statistics, with co-operation and support of the Met Office, Southampton University Hospital NHS Trust, and the Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust. The level of support, commitment and excitement about this research from these three organisations is such that between them they have pledged 60,000 towards the costs of the overall project.