Demographic Profiles and Health Care
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 1990 4:36 pm
I have just joined the mailing list and thought I would take the opportunity
of introduing myself.
I currently work for the National Health Service in the UK, and have a keen
interest in Systems Dynamics
and Systems Thinking. One of the things that I am doing at the moment is
working with small team of managers, both in the health service and in
social services to develop insight into the ways that these organisations
currently function, and the potential benefits and costs of closer
collaboration.
I have been experimenting with a range of techniques - I have found the
ithink software a flexible and powerful tool for this sort of work. The
sorts of models that I have been building with it range from the very simple
coin sorter type - as a tool for learning about basic systems dynamics and
their applications in organisations - to the more complex dynamic models. I
have also been interested in the use of these tools for public health
decision making and health care strategy.
One question that I would like to ask relates to a simple method of
constructing ageing and death in a population. One thing that I tried to
model early on was the gradual ageing and dying of a population. However,
if I use a simple drain from a stock I get a typical exponential curve.
This does not match my mental model of this situation. Instead of getting a
curve that looks like the first half of a U I want to get a curve that
looks like the latter half of a n - that is people gradually age, then
death rate for the population increases with time. You may realise already
that I am self-taught, i.e. I hope this is not a totally naive question! I
have modelled the sort of behaviour that I want - but only with a quite
complicated structure - surely there is a very simple technique?
I hope soon to take part in some of the on-going discussions - I am very
interested in what people have recently contribute to the ideas on diffusion
of innovation. One of the ideas that we are playing with at present is the
use of complexity science as a tool or framework for understanding/promoting
diffsion of innovation in health care.
Regards,
Ashley Woolmore
From: "Ashley Woolmore" <A.Woolmore@csld.freeserve.co.uk>
of introduing myself.
I currently work for the National Health Service in the UK, and have a keen
interest in Systems Dynamics
and Systems Thinking. One of the things that I am doing at the moment is
working with small team of managers, both in the health service and in
social services to develop insight into the ways that these organisations
currently function, and the potential benefits and costs of closer
collaboration.
I have been experimenting with a range of techniques - I have found the
ithink software a flexible and powerful tool for this sort of work. The
sorts of models that I have been building with it range from the very simple
coin sorter type - as a tool for learning about basic systems dynamics and
their applications in organisations - to the more complex dynamic models. I
have also been interested in the use of these tools for public health
decision making and health care strategy.
One question that I would like to ask relates to a simple method of
constructing ageing and death in a population. One thing that I tried to
model early on was the gradual ageing and dying of a population. However,
if I use a simple drain from a stock I get a typical exponential curve.
This does not match my mental model of this situation. Instead of getting a
curve that looks like the first half of a U I want to get a curve that
looks like the latter half of a n - that is people gradually age, then
death rate for the population increases with time. You may realise already
that I am self-taught, i.e. I hope this is not a totally naive question! I
have modelled the sort of behaviour that I want - but only with a quite
complicated structure - surely there is a very simple technique?
I hope soon to take part in some of the on-going discussions - I am very
interested in what people have recently contribute to the ideas on diffusion
of innovation. One of the ideas that we are playing with at present is the
use of complexity science as a tool or framework for understanding/promoting
diffsion of innovation in health care.
Regards,
Ashley Woolmore
From: "Ashley Woolmore" <A.Woolmore@csld.freeserve.co.uk>