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Healthcare

Franz Edelman Award

Craigslist’s role in the illegal drug trade

In a single year, abuse of illegal and prescription drugs costs the U.S. an estimated $271.5 billion, due to increased healthcare costs, crime and lost productivity. Not to mention the growing risk of overdose and death as increasingly potent substances, like fentanyl, are introduced to the market. This is compounded by the increasing ease with which these illegal substances have become available, enabled in no small part by the internet. And these aren’t necessarily from outlets typically viewed as nefarious, like the dark web, but from sites many of us use regularly. In this episode I am joined by Anandhi…

Tags: Anandhi Bharadwaj, Craigslist, Emory University, illegal drugs, Management Science

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A look inside the rapid spread of the coronavirus, what are we missing?

In December 2019, the first cases of the coronavirus were identified in Wuhan, China. As the number of infections and subsequent patient deaths has continued to rise, the struggle to treat and contain the spread of the virus has become a worldwide concern for both medical professionals and world leaders. For this episode I am joined by Richard Larson, post-tenure professor in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose recently published article with the INFORMS magazine OR/MS Today, “The 2019-nCoV Coronavirus: Are there two routes to infection?” looks at the possible reasons this…

Tags: coronavirus, disease transmission, infection, MIT, Richard Larson

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Is your bias affecting my meal?

When we travel to a new place, whether for long overdue vacation, a work trip, or simply a day trip someplace we’ve been meaning to check out, many of us rely on review platforms such as TripAdvisor and Yelp to help us plan our visit. In particular, we look for guidance and advice in selecting restaurants, making choices based on how previous visitors have rated their own experience. But how accurate are these reviews really? And adding more ‘food’ for thought, how much of a role does personal bias play when it comes to these reviews, and exactly what factors…

Tags: bias, Boston College, Marios Kokkodis, online reviews, popularity-difference bias, Yelp

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Sprinkling Ground Red Chili Pepper Paprika over Sliced Vegetables

Food lacking flavor? Sprinkle on a little AI!

It’s Friday night, you’re cooking dinner for your friends or family. The wine is poured, the table is set. You’re preparing a favorite recipe, but have added a brand new spice mix to the dish. It smells amazing, and everyone agrees, it tastes even better. But where did this new seasoning come from? The answer? Artificial Intelligence! To talk about this fascinating new application of AI, the result of a partnership between IBM and McCormick, I am joined by Robin Lougee, AVP, Advanced Analytics, Ascena.

Tags: AI, artificial intelligence, flavor, IBM, McCormick, product development, Robin Lougee, spices

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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…

Tags: AI, artificial intelligence, diagnostic testing, Johns Hopkins University, Tinglong Dai

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Looking ahead with the 2020 INFORMS president

It’s a brand new year at INFORMS and we are all looking forward to an incredible 2020, especially as this year marks the 25th anniversary of INFORMS! In this episode, I am joined by the 2020 INFORMS President Pinar Keskinocak, to discuss her goals and objectives over the coming year.

Tags: disaster preparedness, diversity, Georgia Institute of Technology, INFORMS president, Pinar Keskinocak, Resoundingly Human

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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…

Tags: data transparency, Harvard University, healthcare, Resoundingly Human, Soroush Saghafian

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How video game companies can “level up” their profits

The video game industry is growing at a phenomenal rate, generating a record $43.4 billion in revenue in 2018, an increase of nearly 20 percent from the year before. The largest area of growth within this industry has been in the online gaming community. But with players functioning at different skill levels and an even wider range of interest areas, how can companies ensure players remain engaged and their products continue to grow in popularity? Joining us for this episode to provide new insight into online gamer behavior is Yan Huang from Carnegie Mellon University, whose research which was recently…

Tags: Online Gaming, operations research, Resoundingly Human, Video Games

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Is your favorite restaurant at risk of failing its health inspection?

Has this ever happened to you? Walking up to your favorite local restaurant, looking forward to a delicious meal only to discover … it has failed its restaurant inspection! Yuck. I think there are few events that will convince you to eat at home more. But what if there was a way to anticipate if a restaurant was at risk of failing an inspection well before this actually happened? In this episode, we will hear from James Howard, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, whose research has helped identify if a restaurant will fail an inspection before…

Tags: James Hoawrd, Johns Hopkins, operations research, restaurant inspections

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Just how bad for business are your Facebook comments?

More than 60 million companies maintain business pages on Facebook, allowing them to connect with existing customers as well as reach new ones. And with more than 1.62 billion people log onto Facebook daily, this might seem like a great way to reach a nearly limitless audience. However, the Facebook platform which enables consumers to provide comments and feedback, provides companies with very little power to control what is posted on their pages, leaving them open to negative feedback which could have a damaging effect on their brands. To give us insight into the nature of the comments consumers are…

Tags: business pages, Facebook, Mochen Yang, Resoundingly Human

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