Planning of a health-care system modelled as a two-person game

Abstract

The problem of minimization of costs for a health-care system is modelled as a two-person zero sum game. The game consists of the management of the system, first person, trying to minimize costs; while the devil, second person, decides the number of patients during a certain time interval in such a way as to maximize the costs. Naturo also plays a part in the game as it acids a certain amount of 'fuzzincss’ to the manager's prediction of the devil's number of patients. Two types of services are available, intensive and normal care. They can be either increased or decreased at each of the two time intervals considered. At the beginning of each time interval the devil chooses the number of patients, nature gives a predetermined ‘fuzziness’ to the prediction, and management decides how to change the facilities. A cost function or payoff is defined which accounts for initial expenditures, upkeeping costs, and penalties for making wrong decisions. Information collection schemes are defined for both players whe...