Soft Operational Research OR and a Markov model help plan a psychogeriatric service

This paper describes and evaluates the development of a Markov chain model to assist strategic policy formulation for a psychogeriatric service, using a soft Operational Research OR approach. The methodology is developed from Guba and Lincoln’s naturalistic evaluation approach and involves stakeholders in the process of problem identification and model formulation. The model provided a quantitative analysis of strategic resources in the context of a qualitative analysis of service effectiveness. Four strategies for the future of the service were evaluated, and a consensus over the most appropriate strategy was achieved.