OPTIMAL CONTROL THEORETIC APPROACH TO INVESTMENT IN DOCTORS

Health care is ever more important with aging population. Assuming the number of doctors per patient is one of the determinants of patient satisfaction, optimal investment in practitioner doctors, specialist doctors and foreign doctors are analyzed given the total number of doctors (domestic) are ex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCopernican journal of finance & accounting Vol. 8; no. 4; pp. 91 - 111
Main Author Mustafa Akan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń 01.06.2020
Subjects
investment in doctors
optimal control theory
patient satisfaction
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Summary:Health care is ever more important with aging population. Assuming the number of doctors per patient is one of the determinants of patient satisfaction, optimal investment in practitioner doctors, specialist doctors and foreign doctors are analyzed given the total number of doctors (domestic) are exogenously determined. The high cost of investment in specialist doctors are weighted against the high salaries of imported foreign doctors. An optimal control theory is employed to determine the optimal investment plans for the two alternative sources of specialist doctors to maximize the net (of costs) patient satisfaction over a fixed time horizon. It is found that a nation with insufficient number of specialist doctors at the beginning of the time horizon should increase the investment in local specialist doctors gradually while employing foreign doctors as to equate their salaries to the marginal satisfaction of the patients. An equilibrium point exists, and it is stable.
ISSN:2300-1240
2300-3065
DOI:10.12775/CJFA.2019.019