Successful Applications

Scenario analysis leads to 192 country resolution and $100M in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to target global eradication rather than an ongoing maintenance program.

Creative solutions were needed to tackle the elective recovery backlog under limited resources. System Dynamics allowed operational and clinical staff to test the impact of major interventions, aiding leaders decide how to best allocate resources, transform services to benefit patients, and reduce waiting times.

This updated Second Edition of Pharmaceutical Product Branding Strategies details how marketers, forecasters, and brand planners can achieve optimal success by building internally consistent simulation models to project future behavior of patients, physicians, and R&D processes.

The model simulations suggest four characteristic dynamics of the diabetes population: Obesity’s role in driving the growth of prediabetes and diabetes prevalence; the “backing up” phenomenon that may undercut the benefits of management and control efforts; management and control efforts alone are unable to reduce diabetes prevalence in the long term; delays between primary prevention efforts and downstream improvements in diabetes outcomes.

Pharmaceutical Product Life-cycles A leading global pharmaceutical company wanted to understand the interdependencies between resource levels and experience through the life-cycle of drug products. It was also interested in the impact of organisational design on its...

Medical Device Company The Issue You Tackled The company faces total loss of sales for a consumer medical device – very well known amongst the 100,000 users and doctors – with the ending of a patent in 2010. It has developed a replacement product, but faces the...

Supply Chain Options in Pharmaceuticals A global pharmaceuticals company wanted to evaluate future supply-chain options for a group of drug products. In a series of workshops held with knowledgeable personnel over a six week period, the team (comprising the modeller...

Health and Social Care Policy in the UK In 2000, the British government initiated a National Health Services (NHS) program aimed at improving the quality of health care services. This long range program included hiring new employees, providing more facilities in the...

Medicare Payment Rate The Issue You Tackled The Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandates Medicare payment growth rate reductions to acute and rehab hospitals and home health providers. CMS/OACT initially calculated that these reductions would cause most such providers to...

HealthBound The Issue You Tackled Proposals to improve the US health system are commonly supported by models that have only a few variables and overlook certain processes that may delay, dilute, or defeat intervention effects. What You Actually Did An evidence-based...

Obesity Population Dynamics A system dynamics simulation model was developed for understanding trends in obesity in the United States.  Data on population body weight from 1971-2002 were combined with information from nutritional science and demography into a single...

Hospital Surge Capacity Planning A system dynamics model was developed to help hospitals assess their ability to handle surges of demand during various types of disasters.  The model represents all major flows of patients through a hospital and indicates how specific...

Antibiotic Resistance Dynamics Many common bacterial pathogens have become increasingly resistant to the antibiotics used to treat them. The evidence suggests that the essential cause of the problem is the extensive and often inappropriate use of antibiotics, a...

Marketing Strategy for a New Cholesterol-Lowering Drug This was the first of a series of models with Sandoz dealing with the positioning of new products in various therapeutic application markets.  The cholesterol-lowering drug was a “me-too” drug entering a very...

Cocaine Use Prevalence Estimation and Policy Analysis A system dynamics model reproduces a variety of national indicator data reflecting cocaine use and supply over a 15-year period and provides detailed estimates of actual underlying prevalence. Sensitivity testing...

Children’s Oral Health The Issue You Tackled Early childhood caries (ECC) – tooth decay among children younger than 6 years – is highly prevalent and consequential in the United States, despite being highly preventable. Forty-four percent of 5-year-olds have cavity...

Are You vMad To Go For Surgery? Surgical Instruments Risk Assessment Case summary Although the prevalence of vCJD (a human form of “Mad Cow Disease”) was successfully reduced between 2000 and 2004, the alarming peak in cases led to concern about the disease’s possible...