Dynamic capacity augmentation strategies for health manpower supply under various demand patterns

Health manpower systems continually face rapidly changing manpower demand due to ever-changing health needs all over the globe. Capacity planning for health manpower supply is a strategic issue with increasing complexity and importance. Under dynamic demand patterns characterised by complex dynamic properties, investment in capacity build-up has to be done more cautiously than ever. Otherwise, the necessary human capital growth is retarded or the training system is left with unutilized capacity. This is a great challenge to decision makers when developing manpower supply strategies in turbulent environments. This paper employs the concepts of system dynamics to simulate the impact of different health manpower demand patterns on supply capacity augmentation. Using a typical health manpower system, capacity augmentation policies are simulated against known demand patterns such as steady, ever-growing and fluctuating demand. The simulation model provides an experimental tool, which can be used to evaluate alternative long-term policies based on demand-supply planning reliability as a performance measure. Validation and numerical experimentations further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model, providing sound managerial insights. The approach is useful in designing decision support systems for capacity augmentation in health manpower systems.