AIDSPLAN: A decision support model for planning the provision of HIV/AIDS-related services

AIDSPLAN is a customized spreadsheet model for use as a decision support tool in planning resources for HIV/AIDS-related services. Constructing the model has been a cooperative venture involving both the British Government’s Department of Health and the operational research group at the London School of Economics. The model, which runs on a microcomputer, incorporates a demand-forecasting facility by patient category. Alternative care options can be specified for each patient category. For any given set of categories, forecasts, and care options, AIDSPLAN produces estimates of resource and cost requirements and can also produce a variety of aggregated or disaggregated summaries. The model is designed for use by those concerned with planning HIV/AIDS-related services as an option-scanning device to examine the consequences of particular policies within a range of possible external scenarios.