| Simcoe County Community Care Access Center (SCCCAC) is under pressure from rising demand for home care services coupled with the Ontario government's unwillingness to increase their budgets without quantitative proof of the impact. In response, the SCCCAC has requested help predicting the expected waiting time of their patients under varying conditions and budget assumptions.; A Microsoft Access based tool is created to address this problem. The model predicts monthly referral rates using linear regression and seasonality and waiting times using an analytical queueing solution.; When validated against 2001 data, the model predicted average waiting time of patients on adult waiting lists well, but children's waiting times were not predicted accurately. Similarly, the forecast of referrals was much more reliable for adult waiting lists than for children's waiting lists. The errors in inaccurately predicted waiting lists can be largely attributed to data integrity issues and deviations from the SCCCAC's standard processes. |
