Model reviews

Supporting modellers to make their DES more reproducible and reusable

In May 2025 and February 2026, I was invited to review two existing simulation models.

Hybrid simulation modelling for orthopaedics

The model is available at:

Matthew Howells ORCID, Paul Harper ORCID, Daniel Gartner ORCID, Geraint Palmer ORCID (2025) Hybrid Simulation Modelling for Orthopaedics. GitHub. https://github.com/MHowells/HybridSimModel.

It combines:

  • A system dynamics model used to model patient deterioration while waiting for a GP referral to primary care.
  • A DES model used to model the patient journey through an orthopaedic department.

It is summarised in the poster “Clinical Pathway Modelling of a Trauma and Orthopaedics Department” from the OR Society’s 12th Simulation Workshop (SW25) conference

I reviewed the model repository, providing the review as a GitHub issue (and an accompanying pull request). The review was structured into:

  • A review summary.
  • Feedback from running the code (e.g., dependency management, code troubleshooting).
  • Evaluation against the STARS framework for model reuse.
  • Evaluation against the STARS reproducibility recommendations.

Screenshot from the review GitHub issue

Nurse staffing simulation

The model is available at:

Tolusha Dahanayake Yapa ORCID, Peter Griffiths ORCID, Tom Monks ORCID, Chiara Dall’Ora ORCID, Ezekwesiri Nwanosike ORCID, Natalie Pattison ORCID, Christina Saville ORCID (2026). Nurse Staffing Simulation Paper. GitHub. https://github.com/TolushaDYapa/NurseStaffingSimulation_Paper.

I attempted to reproduce results in the draft paper, recording results in a GitHub issues and providing pull requests with some suggested changes.

This supported the addition of an environment file with all required dependencies, and identified a missing analysis script required for creating the paper tables.