Article ID: | iaor20091220 |
Country: | Netherlands |
Volume: | 11 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 184 |
End Page Number: | 195 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2008 |
Journal: | Health Care Management Science |
Authors: | Stanford David A., Renouf Elizabeth M., McAlister Vivian C. |
Keywords: | queues: applications |
This study comprises a historical review of liver transplants performed in Canada during 2000–2004, and sensitivity analyses to assess the impact of possible changes in the operation of the waitlists. In the first part, overall statistics are reported, and the notable impact that blood type plays in affecting waiting time is discussed. Waiting times and numbers of transplants are also reported by gender, age, and geographic region (waitlist), and statistical analyses of the patient placement and cadaveric donations processes are performed. These analyses establish that the service times of an appropriate queuing model are closely approximated by an exponential distribution. Consequently, the resulting distribution for the waiting time from placement until transplant is well described by a different exponential distribution. The GI/M/1 queuing model is then used to perform a number of sensitivity analyses.