Discrete Event Simulation for Health Technology Assessment

28 Discrete Event Simulation for Health Technology Assessment

2.1.2 Event Consequences

All events have consequences of interest (if they don’t, then they are not rel-

evant to model and should be eliminated). The consequence may be a single,

very simple one (e.g., the total cost is updated to add a new expense) or it can

be an extensive, complex list as in the structural gates mentioned above. It is

these consequences that result in the outcomes the model is tracking.

Between the start and the end of the simulation, an entity can experi-

ence any number of events, each one with its own consequences. These

consequences can be effects on other events, or on the values of attributes

or global variables. For example, the occurrence of one event may ...