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The decision technologies, tools and theories of Operations Research and Management Sciences have long been applied to a wide range of issues and problems within health care. To date, however, there has been no single handbook that synthesizes the wide applicability of such techniques. The Handbook of Operations Research and Health Care now makes available to practitioners, students, and researchers a comprehensive handbook volume that will help them improve their ability to apply these decision technologies. In addition, the handbook will present new state-of-the-art techniques, explore new issues and challenges, and examine new avenues for research.
This handbook will fill these needs in a three-fold approach:
It reviews health care systems (in the U.S., other developed countries, and developing countries), their structure, environment, and evolution. It reviews key issues, problems, and challenges experienced today and to be expected in the future.
It synthesizes decision technology applications published in the last 10 years. It describes which health care delivery issues, problems, and challenges were addressed in the past, while highlighting areas for future operations research/management science work in health care.
It provides a comprehensive series of state-of-the-art applications - each of which are written by a leading authority - detailing the problem area, the methodology (or methodologies) employed, the implementation, the results, and the issues/avenues raised for future research. Each topic will be structured and addressed in such a way that a wide audience will be able to access and use the materials presented. The following topics are examined in the volume:
Introduction/ Overview:
Health care delivery in the US and elsewhere,
OR/MS in health; a 10 year overview.
Health Care Operations Improvement:
Scheduling and workforce planning,
Inventory management,
Supply chain management,
Logistics planning and modeling,
Equipment planning,
Planning,
Facility location and layout,
Workforce & workload models,
Decision support systems,
Performance measurement & modeling,
Queueing models,
Quality management.
Economic Analysis:
Equipment evaluation & selection models,
Optimal pricing and costing models,
Demand forecasting and planning models,
Impact of policies on health care demand,
Technology assessment.
Public Policy:
Regional planning and network models,
Access and availability population models,
Technology diffusion models,
Disease prevention,
Health care coverage,
Vaccine modeling,
Organ allocation models,
Disease screening,
Resource allocation,
Drug policies,
Blood supply management policies.
Clinical Applications:
Risk assessment and analysis,
Clinical diagnosis and decision making,
Decision support systems,
Disease modeling (individual level),
Treatment design and planning,
Drug selection models,
Optimal dosing models,
Vaccine models,
Clinical quality. The handbook will serve a large multidisciplinary audience that includes:
Decision technology practitioners, students, scientists and researchers with interest (either new interest or existing expertise) in health care,
Practitioners in health sciences, health administration, public health, health care delivery, and health policy.
List of contents
Health Care Delivery: Current Problems and Future Challenges.- Capacity Planning and Management in Hospitals.- Location of Health Care Facilities.- Ambulance Service Planning: Simulation and Data Visualization.- Supply Chain Management of Blood Banks.- Evaluating the Efficiency of Hospitals Perioperative Services Using DEA.- Benchmarking Using DEA: The Case of Mental Health Organizations.- Using Simulation in an Acute-Care Hospital: Easier Said Than Done.- Estimating Risks to the Public Health.- Modeling Health Outcomes for Economic Analysis.- Duct Tape for Decision Makers: The Use of OR Models in Pharmacoeconomics.- Drug Policy: Insights from Mathematical Analysis.- Modeling the Costs and Effects of Maintenance Treatment for Opiate Addiction.- Harm Reduction in the Control of Infectious Diseases Among Injection Drug Users.- The Cost Effectiveness of Partially Effective HIV Vaccines.- Designing Pediatric Formularies for Childhood Immunization Using Integer Programming Models.- Allocating Resources to Control Infectious Diseases.- Microbial Risk Assessment for Drinking Water.- Screening for Diabetic Retinopathy.- Decision Making for Bioterror Preparedness: Examples from Smallpox Vaccination Policy.- Models for Kidney Allocation.- Planning in the Face of Politics: Reshaping Children s Health Services in Inner London.- Modeling Medical Treatment Using Markov Decision Processes.- Dynamic Influence Diagrams: Applications to Medical Decision Modeling.- Assessment of the Benefits of Anesthesia.- An Asthma Policy Model.- A Bayesian Network to Assist Mammography Interpretation.- Optimization and Decision Support in Brachytherapy Treatment Planning.- Radiotherapy Treatment Design and Linear Programming.- Optimization Tools for Radiation Treatment Planning in Matlab.- Transmission Model Analysis of Non-Typeable Haemophilus Influenzae.- The Impact of Novel Treatments on Aß Burden in Alzheimer s Disease: Insights from a Mathematical Model.- Index.
Summary
In both rich and poor nations, public resources for health care are inadequate to meet demand. Policy makers and health care providers must determine how to provide the most effective health care to citizens using the limited resources that are available. This chapter describes current and future challenges in the delivery of health care, and outlines the role that operations research (OR) models can play in helping to solve those problems. The chapter concludes with an overview of this book – its intended audience, the areas covered, and a description of the subsequent chapters. KEY WORDS Health care delivery, Health care planning HEALTH CARE DELIVERY: PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES 3 1.1 WORLDWIDE HEALTH: THE PAST 50 YEARS Human health has improved significantly in the last 50 years. In 1950, global life expectancy was 46 years [1]. That figure rose to 61 years by 1980 and to 67 years by 1998 [2]. Much of these gains occurred in low- and middle-income countries, and were due in large part to improved nutrition and sanitation, medical innovations, and improvements in public health infrastructure.
Additional text
From the reviews:
"The three editors … aim this book at a broad audience that includes OR practitioners and researchers with interests in healthcare, as well as healthcare practitioners. The editors set out in this book to provide a comprehensive reference on the applicability of operations research techniques, tools and theories to a wide range of issues and problems in healthcare. … it is worthwhile to have a copy in the library as a useful reference to the many ways that OR could be applied in healthcare." (T Burgess, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 57, 2006)
Report
From the reviews:
"The three editors aim this book at a broad audience that includes OR practitioners and researchers with interests in healthcare, as well as healthcare practitioners. The editors set out in this book to provide a comprehensive reference on the applicability of operations research techniques, tools and theories to a wide range of issues and problems in healthcare. it is worthwhile to have a copy in the library as a useful reference to the many ways that OR could be applied in healthcare." (T Burgess, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 57, 2006)
