Van Ackere, Ann, "A Systems Thinking Approach to Analyze the Waitinglist Phenomenon", 1994
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The aim of the national health Service(NHS) is to provide access to medical care to all. One of the challenges is tobalance demand and resources while avoiding unduly waiting lists, either fortreatment (the traditional waiting list phenomenon), or to see a practitioner.This note illustrated how Systems Thinking can contribute to the understandingof the complex of this issue, and to assess the impact of various policies.Systems thinking differs from traditional approaches in that it looks at theproblem as a whole, as a system, and focuses on identifying keyinter-relationships and feedback loops between different components of thesystem. We present three simple examples which illustrate the concepts ofsystems thinking, and indicate how this approach could be useful to analyzevarious policies.