Click here to download issue 1 of Nosokinetics
Click here to download issue 2 of Nosokinetics

For those who search to capture the universe in a mathematical equation, or for those who simply seek to develop a science which explains the complex processes of heatlh and social care, the BGS would introduce you to Nosokinetics.

In an overview of mathematical models in the Australian Mathematical Society Gazette, Peter Goddard and Terry Mills, from La Trobe University, Bendigo, consider the different ways that mathematics is being used to improve understanding of congestion in hospitals. The paper contains no new models; rather it is an expository paper.

This is just one of the articles appearing in the second issue of Nosokinetics News, the brainchild of Prof Peter Millard, whose 2004 New Year's Resolution was to get "nosokinetics" into "Google": this is one resolution which did not go the way of other New Year Resolutions - Nosokinetics is a Google hit!

Says Peter in the first issue of Nosokinetics News, "Until new methods of planning health and social care services to meet the needs of an ageing population are introduced, service delivery will stumble on from crisis to crisis. Any system should be capable of being monitored and conclusions drawn; and any system must be a whole system. Health and social care is no exception to this rule and paradigms need to change when problems resist solutions, instruments perform poorly and anomalies in theories appear (Harper 2003).

Constant managerial change is a sign that politicians are failing to grasp the reality of health and social care. Analagous to the vast improvement in prescribing, which followed the development of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, the development of nosokinetics and nosodynamics would transform the planning of health and social care.

Another topic reviewed in the latest issue is that of "Simulating the flow of patients" by Chris Vasilakis PhD.

Nosokinetics News is produced in .pdf format and is distributed by email. It currently has 100 subscribers and the aim is to have 500 by April 2005. Anybody wishing to be on the mailing list should contact Prof Peter Millard at: nosokinetics@tiscali.co.uk

Kevin Kelleher