MODELLING LONG-TERM CHANGES IN POPULATION HEALTH STATE AND ASSOCIATED HEALTHCARE RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS

Longer-term healthcare planning is challenging given inherent uncertainties in future population demographics and health state, and wider unknowns regarding the economy, society and technology. The aim of this paper is to describe the development and early application of a mathematical model used to simulate the health state and associated healthcare resource consumption in a one-million resident population in and around Bristol (UK). The first stage of the modelling is to simulate population health over the next 20 years, according to five ‘Core Segments’ defined using the Cambridge Multimorbidity Score. This is done through a set of discrete-time difference equations, calibrated on patient-level data. The second stage is to apply to these projections the expected healthcare activity and cost information to derive totals per core segment. Baseline model results suggest 1.7% annual real-term cost growth, of which 0.9% is demographic and 0.8% is due to deteriorating population health.