Modelling healthcare systems with phase-type distributions.

Phase-type distributions constitute a very versatile class of distributions. They have been used in a wide range of stochastic modelling applications in areas as diverse as telecommunications, finance, biostatistics, queueing theory, drug kinetics, and survival analysis. Their use in modelling systems in the healthcare industry, however, has so far been limited. In this paper we introduce phase-type distributions, give a survey of where they have been used in the healthcare industry, and propose some ideas on how they could be further utilized.