System simulation as decision data in heathcare IT

Information Technology in healthcare is an ever-growing enterprise, with medical providers becoming more and more reliant on data to make care decisions. With the increased reliance on these applications for care, questions arise around the availability and manageability of those systems. This paper examines a model which has been developed for the selection of computing infrastructure architectures in healthcare organizations. This model utilizes the Analytics Hierarchy Process (AHP) to weigh the various criteria that come into play for decisions of this nature. Further, to vet the recommendations of the AHP model, and to lend quantitative data to the decision making process, simulations of the various architectural options were built for various application scenarios. The results of these simulations thus serve as additional validation of the model's efficacy. This paper focuses on the use of discrete event simulation using ExtendSim® to assist in the architectural selection process for computing architectures.