Strategic Analytics to Drive Provincial Dialysis Capacity Planning

This chapter discusses applications of analytics at the strategic level of health system planning in the province of Ontario, Canada. To supplement the strategic priorities of the Ontario Renal Plan I, a roadmap developed by the Ontario Renal Network to guide its directions in coordinating renal care province-wide, an interactive user-friendly analytical capacity planning model was developed to forecast the growth of the prevalent chronic dialysis patient population and estimate consequent future need for hemodialysis stations at Ontario's dialysis facilities. The model also projects operational funding to care for dialysis patients, vascular surgeries to achieve arteriovenous fistula targets, peritoneal dialysis catheter insertions to achieve peritoneal dialysis prevalence targets, and incident dialysis patients to be sent home to achieve prevalent home dialysis targets. The model uses a variety of analytical methods, including time series analysis, mathematical optimization, geo-spatial analysis and Monte Carlo simulation.