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Montgomery County’s Public Health Service Uses Operations Research to Plan Emergency Mass Dispensing and Vaccination Clinics

Montgomery County Advanced Practice Center, Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Program, Department of Health and Human Services, 2000 Dennis Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland 20902
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742
Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services, Dennis Avenue Health Center, 2000 Dennis Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland 20902
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742
Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Program, Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services, 2000 Dennis Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland 20902
kay.aaby{at}montgomerycountymd.gov
jwh2{at}umd.edu
carol.jordan{at}montgomerycountymd.gov
mtread{at}umd.edu
kathy.wood{at}montgomerycountymd.gov

To curb outbreaks of contagious diseases, county health departments must set up and operate clinics to dispense medications and vaccines. Carefully planning these clinics in advance of such an event is difficult and important. We developed and implemented operations research models to improve clinic planning for the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Health Services. They include discrete-event simulation models and capacity-planning and queueing-system models. We validated these models using data that we collected during full-scale simulations of disease outbreaks. We also developed guidelines for the physical design of clinics based on general queueing principles and our own experiences.

Key Words: health care: treatment; simulation: applications