Using the Statecharts paradigm for simulation of patient flow in surgical care

Computer simulation of patient flow has been used extensively to assess the impacts of changes in the management of surgical care. However, little research is available on the utility of existing modeling techniques. The purpose of this paper is to examine the capacity of Statecharts, a system of graphical specification, for constructing a discrete-event simulation model of the peri-operative process. The Statecharts specification paradigm was originally developed for representing reactive systems by extending the formalism of finite-state machines through notions of hierarchy, parallelism, and event broadcasting.