| Abstract: | An important problem facing the manager of an outpatient health care clinic involves determining the best combination of services, facilities, and personnel to maximize profits and simultaneously achieve acceptable measures of the clinic's daily performance. This problem is often attacked using either linear programming or computer simulation. This paper uses a recursive optimization-simulation approach which takes advantage of the best features of both optimization and simulation while minimizing the disadvantages of each method used alone. Results from a hypothetical setting using data from several actual settings demonstrate the value of the recursive method. |
