Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Risk Estimation Toward A Natural History Model For Low Grade Glioma Patients, Anh Thi Hoang Pham

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Glioma is a common type of primary brain tumor that represents 28% of all brain tumors and 80% of malignant tumors. According to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), gliomas account for 53%, 35% and 29% of all brain tumors (68%, 74% and 81% of malignant brain tumors) among children (aged 0-14), teenagers (aged 15-19) and young adults, respectively. Gliomas are often diagnosed through radiological imaging and histopathology. There are two main groups of gliomas following World Health Organization’s classification: Low grade gliomas (LGG), or grade I and II gliomas; and high grade gliomas …

Essays In Physicians Preference Items And Inventory Management Within The Healthcare Supply Chain, Mohammad A. Shbool

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work is composed of a number of topics in the healthcare area, which are approached separately with appropriate methodologies. The two topics deal with physician preference items via two different approaches. The first one investigates stock keeping unit (SKU) proliferation in healthcare organizations due to physician preference items (PPI). It captures perspectives of physicians and supply chain professionals about this problem through two surveys. The second topic builds a decision-making framework for the PPI selection process that can be used by healthcare organizations to make more objective decisions. A Multi-criteria decision making technique is implemented to illustrate the framework.

Understanding Technology Diffusion And Spatial Accessibility In The Home Healthcare Industry, Mehmet Serdar Kilinç

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Home healthcare is becoming an important alternative to institutionalized care. It not only reduces costs but also increases health outcomes and patient satisfaction. However, the availability and efficiency of home healthcare services need to be improved as the aging population increases in the US. Hence, understanding home healthcare utilization and access are the essential steps to develop strategies ensuring effective and sustainable services to patients.

This research aims to study two main issues in the US home healthcare system: diffusion and long-term impacts of home telehealth and potential spatial accessibility of home healthcare services. Home telehealth is a promising technology …

Patient And Nurse Considerations In Home Health Routing With Remote Monitoring Devices, Jessica Spicer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We build on the current consistent vehicle routing problem literature by formulating a novel multi- objective mathematical model of the home health scheduling and routing problem that includes the option of assigning some patient visits to remote monitoring devices, with the objectives of mini- mizing total cost, achieving nurse consistency and creating balanced nurse workloads. A heuristic solution approach that approximates the efficient frontier of this multiobjective problem is pre- sented and validated, and the results of using this methodology to solve several realistic instances are included. We also analyze the assignment of patients to devices and present some managerial …

Adaptive Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy Planning Optimization With Changing Tumor Geometry And Biology Enforcing Both Cumulative And Fraction Size Dose Constraints, Behlul Saka

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) is a modern technique of delivering radiation treatments to cancer patients. In IMRT technology, intensities must be chosen for the many small unit grids into which the beams are divided to produce a desired distribution of dose at points throughout the body with the goal of maximizing dose delivered to the tumor while sparing healthy tissues from excessive radiation and keeping dose homogeneous across the tumor. Although IMRT plans are optimized as a single overall treatment plan, they are delivered over 30-50 treatment sessions (fractions) and both cumulative and per-fraction dose constraints apply. The extended …

An Empirical Investigation Of Supply Chain Excellence In Healthcare, Brian Keith Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research is motivated by opportunities to improve the cost and quality of healthcare delivery through improved supply chain processes. This research assesses the quality of the healthcare supply chain and identifies factors that are driving supply chain excellence among organizations in the healthcare industry. The first objective of this research is to assess the state of quality measurement in the healthcare supply chain. The achievement of this first objective is presented in Chapter 3 of this dissertation in the form of a manuscript accepted for publication in The Quality Management Journal. The second research objective is to develop …