Register      Login
Australian Health Review Australian Health Review Society
Journal of the Australian Healthcare & Hospitals Association
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Designing a podiatry service to meet the needs of the population: a service simulation

Jackie A Campbell

Australian Health Review 31(1) 63 - 72
Published: 2007

Abstract

A model of a podiatry service has been developed which takes into consideration the effect of changing access criteria, skill mix and staffing levels (among others) given fixed local staffing budgets and the foot-health characteristics of the local community. A spreadsheet-based deterministic model was chosen to allow maximum transparency of programming. This work models a podiatry service in England, but could be adapted for other settings and, with some modification, for other community-based services. This model enables individual services to see the effect on outcome parameters such as number of patients treated, number discharged and size of waiting lists of various service configurations, given their individual local data profile. The process of designing the model has also had spin-off benefits for the participants in making explicit many of the implicit rules used in managing their services.

https://doi.org/10.1071/AH070063

© AHHA 2007

Committee on Publication Ethics

PDF (282 KB) Export Citation

Share

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share via Email

View Dimensions