A framework to share healthcare simulations on the web using free and open source tools and Python

Reusable
Framework
Authors
Affiliations

Alison Harper

University of Exeter Business School

Thomas Monks

University of Exeter Medical School

Published

28 Apr 2023

Doi

10.36819/SW23.030

Journal
Proceedings of the Operational Research Society Simulation Workshop 2023 (SW23)

This is a conference article preceding our full publication Towards sharing tools and artefacts for reusable simulations in healthcare.

Abstract

We present a simple framework to support sharing of executable healthcare discrete-event simulation models in python over the web. Our sharing framework is based on combining remote version control repositories with free and open source software – Jupyter Notebooks, Jupyter Books, and streamlit – along with free digital infrastructure provided by Binder, streamlit.io, GitHub pages, and open science repositories such as Zenodo. The framework enables executable models to be shared with users of different technical abilities: from coders to software literate users. We provide an applied example including a full web application of an executable model. Our framework aims to support NHS organisations to preview, validate, and use models. Academic research teams can also benefit from enhanced scrutiny of their work and long term archiving of models.

Research artefacts

The research artefacts in this conference paper are superceded by those in the full publication.

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Article

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@article{harper2023,
  author = {Harper, Alison and Monks, Thomas},
  title = {A Framework to Share Healthcare Simulations on the Web Using
    Free and Open Source Tools and {Python}},
  journal = {Proceedings of the Operational Research Society Simulation
    Workshop 2023 (SW23)},
  date = {2023-04-28},
  url = {https://pythonhealthdatascience.github.io/stars/pages/publications/2023/harper2023framework/},
  doi = {10.36819/SW23.030},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Harper, Alison, and Thomas Monks. 2023. “A Framework to Share Healthcare Simulations on the Web Using Free and Open Source Tools and Python.” Proceedings of the Operational Research Society Simulation Workshop 2023 (SW23), April. https://doi.org/10.36819/SW23.030.