Speaking the language of healthcare data

Imagine a world where you could access your healthcare data the same way you access your financial data. A world where you get notifications on your iPhone when lab test results are ready and where you can use third party apps to seamlessly track chronic conditions. That world now exists thanks to the health data standard recently mandated by the federal government. Joining me to shed some light on the role that operations research is playing in this development are IBM data scientists Dr. Nasim Lari and Will Rosenfeld, both members of the INFORMS Washington, D.C. chapter, where Nasim serves…

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Creating better YouTube content for patients with chronic disorders

Many of us rely on YouTube for instruction on a wide range of interest areas, from beauty tutorials, to a new recipe, to basic DIY home improvement projects, and more. But what if YouTube tutorials could improve our lives in a different way, by helping us better understand and manage our health and wellness? Joining me for this episode is Rema Padman, trustees professor of management science and healthcare informatics at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, whose research has identified guidelines for organizations to provide YouTube video content for individuals with chronic health conditions…

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Can doctor ego impact your diagnosis?

Operations research and analytics play a key role in advancing medical technology and methodology, with improvements to diagnostic testing, both conventional and AI-based tools, helping doctors more easily and accurately identify and treat medical conditions, providing better patient outcomes. But what happens if doctors aren’t using these tools, either out of concern over the costs incurred by the patient, or because they hold their own personal diagnostic abilities in higher regard, relying on that over diagnostic testing? In this episode, I am joined by Tinglong Dai with the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School and the Johns Hopkins School of…

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Working smarter, not harder, to improve healthcare transparency

Healthcare is a complex, often overwhelming subject, and the effort to match patients with providers based on patient needs and provider ability, known as the patient provider alignment (or PPA) problem, has consistently proven difficult to tackle. In the past, this was thought to have been exacerbated by the limited availability of information available to the public regarding providers and their performance, which could help facilitate better patient provider matches. However, despite efforts to increase transparency by making healthcare data open and available to the public, the PPA problem still persists.  In this episode, I am joined by Soroush Saghafian…

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Detecting Alzheimer’s Disease

This episode is one of a special series recorded during the 2019 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Joining me for this episode is Maryam Zokaei Nikoo from Pennsylvania State University to discuss research she shared at this year’s Annual Meeting. Her presentation, “Using Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing to Predict Alzheimer’s Disease,” is based on research to improve early detection of Alzheimer’s, a disease currently impacting 5.8 million Americans and the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. Want to take a deeper dive? Check out the brief introduction of the research referenced in this podcast below for…

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Fighting Poverty and Inequity with O.R.

This episode is one of a special series recorded during the 2019 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle. Joining me is Kamalini Ramdas from the London Business School, to discuss the topic of her keynote session, presented at the 2019 meeting. Her session, “Alleviating Poverty & Inequity: Fresh Challenges for Business Model Innovation,” explored how to use business model innovation to address chronic worldwide issues like poverty and inequity. In particular, we discuss an innovative, and unexpected, new approach to providing healthcare to patients in impoverished communities suffering from chronic illnesses. 

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Type II diabetes, why haven’t new treatments resulted in better health?

New research shows that, while there have been significant new advancements in available treatments for type II diabetes, this has not translated to better health for those patients. In fact, the study shows that fewer than one in four Americans with diagnosed type II diabetes have achieved the American Diabetes Association’s recommended care targets … which is no better than 15 years ago. Joining me for this episode is the author of this research, Pooyan Kazemian, instructor in medicine at Harvard University Medical School and a research scientist in the division of general internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. 

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Predicting seizures, protecting patients

Some of the most impactful applications of O.R. and analytics are those in the medical field, improving patient outcomes and saving lives. Joining me for this episode are Cynthia Rudin, professor of computer science, electrical and computer engineering and statistical science at Duke University’s Prediction Analysis Lab and Dr. Aaron Struck, a neurologist with the Department of Neurology at the University of Wisconsin. They were members of a multi-university research team whose work on predicting damaging seizures in brain injury patients was recognized with the 2019 Innovative Applications in Analytics Award, presented earlier this year at the INFORMS Business Analytics Conference.

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2019 Business Analytics Conference: Janine Kamath

This podcast, part of a series recorded at the 2019 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference in Austin, TX, features Janine Kamath, chair of the Department of Management Engineering and Internal Consulting (ME&IC) and assistant professor, Health Care Systems Engineering with the Mayo Clinic, and an INFORMS Roundtable member. Her presentation, “Analytics in Healthcare – A Dose of Reality” discusses the role that analytics plays in addressing many of the challenges facing healthcare today.

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February 2019

In this episode we will learn how O.R. and analytics are helping the men and women of law enforcement and the corrections systems, from improving the health of prison inmates, to simplifying the assignment of inmates to the appropriate prison, to helping New York city police men and women better predict and respond to crime. Joining us for this episode are Tamas Terlaky, president of Optamo and professor at Lehigh University, Mohammad Shahabsafa, chief operating officer at Optamo and Anshul Sharma, chief information officer at Optamo, who share their INFORMS Wagner Prize award-winning research on improving inmate scheduling for the…

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