Quantitative modelling for Capacity Planning in Mental Health and Addictions With a Focus on Dementia

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

My 2019-2024 research program focuses on developing operations research decision support models supporting policy makers and planners in the complex Mental Health and Addictions (MHormation silos with limited integration of services, and MHs short-term research focus will be on capacity planning models for community based mental health services with a focus on dementia, including impacts on acute and chronic care capacity. The long-term focus will expand to include broader MH&A sector considerations. ***Over the past 20-30 years operations research has become entrenched in the acute care health care system and is growing in influence in the community and long-term care sectors. My past and present research programs have been key drivers in this change. The vision of this research program is to drive similar long-term development of capacity planning models in MH&A. ***I intend to use System Dynamics (SD) heavily within this research program for strategic policy level decision making. Through the work of myself and other colleagues, SD is now a proven tool for modeling health system complexities in acute and chronic care environments and in this program will be extended to MH&A. I am expecting two key contributions from this work:***1. Extending the small body of academic literature, demonstrating the use of SD as a viable tool for creating generic models in MH&A.***2. Demonstrating the ability to model the complexities of the MH&A sector. ***My expectation is that this program will also require tactical and operational level models, using Discrete Event Simulation and Integer Programming, to optimize policy level decisions for specific applications. ***I expect to fund one PhD student, and post-doctoral student, and two master level students through this grant. An additional PhD student will also be working within this program, funded by a government agency.**