Building healthcare discrete-event simulation models in free and open source software: an introductory tutorial

Tutorial
Authors
Affiliations

Thomas Monks

University of Exeter Medical School

Alison Harper

University of Exeter Business School

Amy Heather

University of Exeter Medical School

Andrew Mayne

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust

Navonil Mustafee

University of Exeter Business School

Published

31 Mar 2025

Doi

10.36819/SW25.004

Abstract

This tutorial aims to support modellers working in healthcare research or practice to build DiscreteEvent Simulation models using the Free and Open Source Software SimPy and Python. We provide a step-by-step guide to building a stylised urgent care telephone call centre model. Open materials that accompany the tutorial, including models and exercises, are available online and can be run without installing Python. As the materials are introductory, we also provide a “next steps” section that describes simple, intermediate and advanced extensions to the work.

Article

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@online{monks2025,
  author = {Monks, Thomas and Harper, Alison and Heather, Amy and Mayne,
    Andrew and Mustafee, Navonil},
  title = {Building Healthcare Discrete-Event Simulation Models in Free
    and Open Source Software: An Introductory Tutorial},
  date = {2025-03-31},
  url = {https://pythonhealthdatascience.github.io/stars/pages/publications/2025/monks2025building/},
  doi = {10.36819/SW25.004},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Monks, Thomas, Alison Harper, Amy Heather, Andrew Mayne, and Navonil Mustafee. 2025. “Building Healthcare Discrete-Event Simulation Models in Free and Open Source Software: An Introductory Tutorial.” March 31, 2025. https://doi.org/10.36819/SW25.004.