Abstract
This paper on the UNOS Liver Allocation Model (ULAM) describes the building of a simulation model that supports policy evaluation for a national medical problem. The modeling and simulation techniques used in building ULAM include: fitting donor and patient arrival processes having trend and cyclic rate components using non-homogeneous Poisson processes (NHPPs) having exponential rate functions which may include both a polynomial and some trigonometric components; fitting distributions to data on transition times between states of medical urgency; application of variance reduction techniques using common random-number streams and prior information; organizing data structures for efficient file searching and ranking capabilities; the use of bootstrapping techniques for attribute sampling; the building of submodels employing biostatistical procedures such as Kaplan-Meier and logistic regression; and the characterization of performance measures within a complex political, economic and social environment. ULAM provides a means for producing quantitative information to support the selection of a liver allocation policy.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1314-1322 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Winter Simulation Conference Proceedings |
State | Published - 1995 |
Externally published | Yes |
Event | Proceedings of the 1995 Winter Simulation Conference, WSC'95 - Arlington, VA, USA Duration: Dec 3 1995 → Dec 6 1995 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Software
- Modeling and Simulation
- Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
- Chemical Health and Safety
- Applied Mathematics