Healthcare systems have long been described as complex systems. We also discuss the combination of these approaches to organisational simulation and the evaluation of simulation-based interventions. We develop the rationale for using simulation and provide an integrative overview of existing approaches, using examples of in vivo behavioural simulations involving live participants, pure in silico computer simulations and intermediate approaches (virtual simulation) where human participants interact with computer simulations of health organisations. In this article, we examine how simulation can be used to investigate, understand and improve management and policy-making in healthcare organisations. The literature on simulation in these fields is dispersed across different disciplinary traditions and typically focuses on a single simulation method.

However, simulation has low adoption as a research and improvement tool in healthcare management and policy-making. Therefore, it can complement or replace direct field observations and trial-and-error approaches, which can be time consuming, costly and difficult to carry out. Simulation provides a safe environment for investigating individual and organisational behaviour and a risk-free testbed for new policies and procedures. Simulation is a technique that evokes or replicates substantial aspects of the real world, in order to experiment with a simplified imitation of an operations system, for the purpose of better understanding and/or improving that system.

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