Engineering Commons^™

Developing An Optimal Model For Infant Home Visitation, Isaac Atuahene

Doctoral Dissertations

The United States, Great Britain, Denmark, Canada and many other countries have accepted home visitation (HV) as a promising strategy for interventions for infants after births and for their mothers. Prior HV studies have focused on theoretical foundations, evaluations of programs, cost/benefit analysis and cost estimation by using hospital/payer/insurance data to prove its effectiveness and high cost. As governments and private organizations continue to fund HVs, it is an opportune time to develop and formulate operations research (OR) models of HV coverage, quality and cost so they might be used in program implementation as done for adult home healthcare (HHC) …

Preventive Maintenance Decision Modeling In Health And Service Systems, Mahboubeh Madadi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the preventive maintenance decision modeling in healthcare and service systems. In the first part of this dissertation, some issues in preventive health decisions for breast cancer are addressed, and in the second part, the required characteristics for preventive maintenance of an unreliable queuing system are derived.

Adherence to cancer screening is the first issue that is addressed in this dissertation. Women’s adherence or compliance with mammography screening remained low in the recent years. In this dissertation, we first develop a design-based logistic regression model to quantify the probability of adherence to screening schedules based on women’s …

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 …

Wirelesseeg: Data Aquisition + Handheld Device, Michael Dylan Snowden, Madeline Threatt, Brent Mcferrin, David Platillero, Karsten Solies, Lindsey Hopf

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Predicting Hospital Patients' Admission To Reduce Emergency Department Boarding, Mohammadmahdi Moqri

Graduate Masters Theses

Emergency Department (ED) boarding - the inability to transfer emergency patients to inpatient beds- is a key factor contributing to ED overcrowding. This paper presents a novel approach to improving hospital operational efficiency and, therefore, to decreasing ED boarding. Using the historic data of 15,000 patients, admission results and patient information are correlated in order to identify important admission predictor factors. For example, the type of radiology exams prescribed by the ED physician is identified as among the most important predictors of admission. Based on these factors, a real-time prediction model is developed which is able to correctly predict the …

Rfid Technology Selection And Economic Justification For Healthcare Asset Tracking, Tyler Robert Peabody, Tali Freed

Master's Theses

Although Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Real-Time Location System (RTLS) technologies for inventory tracking have been growing in popularity, the healthcare industry has been reluctant to adopt these technologies. One of the primary reasons for this lack of enthusiasm has been the risk associated with electromagnetic interference between RFID/RTLS systems and medical equipment functionality. The other reason has been the substantial cost and complexity of implementing RFID/RTLS in healthcare organizations. In this study, we show that there are several ways to safely install RFID/RTLS systems to improve the inventory management processes of hospitals and clinics. We then analyze the inventory …

Applying Inventory Control Practices Within The Sisters Of Mercy Health Care Supply Chain, Server Apras

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research lays a foundation for the better understanding of the application and acceptance of more advanced inventory control practices within the health care supply chain. The demand characteristics and optimal control policies for pharmaceutical items within a multi-echelon provider network are examined within the framework of a case study. Demand forecasting algorithms were applied to forecast demand for inventory control procedures. A spreadsheet-based inventory planning tool was used to minimize the inventory holding and ordering costs subject to fill rate constraints. The costs of inventory control models are compared to the current ordering and inventory control strategies to document …