Developing A Web-Based Decision Support Tool for Healthcare Services to Reduce Waiting Times

The National Health Service (NHS) faces critical operational challenges, including constrained budgets, limited capacity and workforce shortages. Elective care waiting lists have reached about 7.25 million cases, with nearly 40% of patients waiting more than 18 weeks. Similar pressures are evident in the Hertfordshire region, which the services support 1.6 million people across three hospital trusts.

To address these challenges, we developed a web-based decision support tool (DST) for cardiology services to reduce waiting times and improve capacity planning. The tool integrates a discrete event simulation model with a workforce optimisation model, implemented in JavaScript. Through qualitative mapping and extensive stakeholder engagement, including clinicians, nurses, service managers, data specialists, and senior leadership, we conceptualised seven distinct cardiology pathways. The pathways cover the complexity of care from referral through outpatient and inpatient services.

The DST captures the system’s complexity while remaining user-friendly and visually accessible. It enables users to test a range of intervention scenarios, with over 100 parameters per pathway. The tool has undergone rigorous testing and validation. It generates 23 interactive dashboard pages presenting key outputs across pathways, services, and workforce settings.

The DST has enhanced the capacity planning for the Cardiology departments in Hertfordshire by providing actionable and evidence-based solutions with zero software licensing cost and an intuitive interface. The research advances operations management by integrating patient pathway modelling with dynamic workforce optimisation. This innovation supports tackling operational challenges in complex multi-level services.