Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2022Hospital Closures amid COVID-19
The recent trend of hospital closures in the US has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, …
The recent trend of hospital closures in the US has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, as hospitals have experienced financial hardship from reduced patient volume and elective surgery cases, as well as the thin financial margins for treating patients with COVID-19. This trend of hospital closures is concerning for patients, healthcare providers, and policymakers. This current opinion piece describes the challenges caused by hospital closures and discusses what policymakers should know based on the existing…
Health/Medicine | Operations Research | North America | Health Systems -
ArticlePublication 2020Data-Driven Management of Post-Transplant Medications
Organ-transplanted patients typically receive high amounts of immunosuppressive drugs as a mechanism to reduce their …
Organ-transplanted patients typically receive high amounts of immunosuppressive drugs as a mechanism to reduce their risk of organ rejection. However, because of the diabetogenic effect of these drugs, this practice exposes them to a greater risk of new-onset diabetes after transplantation (NODAT), and hence, becoming insulin dependent. This study develops effective medication management strategies to address the common conundrum of balancing the risk of organ rejection versus that of NODAT. The article presents a robust…
Health/Medicine | Operations Research | North America | Mathematical Models | Chronic Disease/Risk -
ArticlePublication 2020Expanding Oral Disease Treatment is Cost Effective
This study developed a stochastic microsimulation model of oral health conditions, type-2 diabetes (T2D), T2D-related …
This study developed a stochastic microsimulation model of oral health conditions, type-2 diabetes (T2D), T2D-related microvascular diseases, and CVD, to project the cost-effectiveness of expanding periodontal treatment coverage among patients with T2D and periodontitis. Previous randomized trials found that treating periodontitis improved glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), thus lowering the risks of developing T2D-related microvascular diseases and cardiovascular disease (CVD). The micro-simulation model parameters were obtained from the nationally representative National…
Calibration/Validation | Health/Medicine | North America | Mathematical Models | Microsimulation | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Chronic Disease/Risk | Graduate -
ToolInteractive, Teaching Resource 2020RAND Critical Care Surge Response Tool
This Excel-based model allows decisionmakers at all levels (i.e., hospitals, health care systems, states, regions) …
This Excel-based model allows decisionmakers at all levels (i.e., hospitals, health care systems, states, regions) to examine the current critical care capacity in the nation’s hospitals and rapidly explore strategies for increasing capacity to provide care for the sickest COVID-19 patients. The tool was developed by the RAND Corporation in response to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Model input parameters to the Excel spreadsheet include baseline number of beds, critical care doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists,…
Health/Medicine | Operations Research | North America | Priority Setting/Ethics | Mathematical Models | Infectious Diseases | Professional | Policy Translation -
ReviewPublication 2016Remembering Howard Raiffa
Howard Raiffa (1924-2016) had a profound influence on all aspects of the decision sciences and on …
Howard Raiffa (1924-2016) had a profound influence on all aspects of the decision sciences and on the fields of systems analysis and operations research. He guided the introduction of the decision sciences into numerous fields such as business, medicine, public health, the environmental sciences, and law, and was instrumental in building world-recognized institutions such as the Kennedy School at Harvard and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis near Vienna, Austria. This article is a thoughtful tribute by…
Health/Medicine | Operations Research | North America | Decision Theory | Preferences/Values | Decision Analysis | Business/Industry | Economics/Finance | Military/Defense -
ArticlePublication 2015Cancer Models and Real-World Data: Better Together
Decision-analytic models synthesize available data on disease burden and intervention effectiveness to project estimates of …
Decision-analytic models synthesize available data on disease burden and intervention effectiveness to project estimates of the long-term consequences of care. While models have been influential in informing US cancer screening guidelines under ideal conditions, incorporating detailed data on real-world screening practice has been limited given the complexity of screening processes and behaviors throughout diverse health delivery systems in the United States. The authors describe the synergies that exist between decision-analytic models and health care utilization…
Calibration/Validation | Health/Medicine | North America | Evidence Synthesis | Mathematical Models | Chronic Disease/Risk | Health Systems | Clinical Care | Science/Technology -
ArticlePublication 2015Population Health Model (POHEM): An Overview
This paper provides an overview of the rationale, methodology and applications of the Population Health …
This paper provides an overview of the rationale, methodology and applications of the Population Health Model (POHEM). POHEM is a health microsimulation model, developed at Statistics Canada in the early 1990s. The authors describe that POHEM draws together rich multivariate data from a wide range of sources to simulate the lifecycle of the Canadian population, specifically focusing on aspects of health. The model dynamically simulates individuals’ disease states, risk factors, and health determinants, in order…
Calibration/Validation | Health/Medicine | North America | Costing Methods | Evidence Synthesis | Mathematical Models | Microsimulation | Chronic Disease/Risk | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Clinical Care | Economics/Finance -
ArticlePublication 2013Contribution of H. Pylori and Smoking to US Incidence of Gastric Adenocarcinoma: A Microsimulation Model
Although gastric cancer has declined dramatically in the US, the disease remains the second leading …
Although gastric cancer has declined dramatically in the US, the disease remains the second leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide. This analysis estimates the contribution of risk factor trends on past and future intestinal-type non-cardia gastric adenocarcinoma (NCGA) incidence. The authors developed a population-based microsimulation model of intestinal-type NCGA and calibrated it to U.S. epidemiologic data on precancerous lesions and cancer. The model explicitly incorporated the impact of Helicobacter pylori and smoking on disease natural history, for which…
Calibration/Validation | Health/Medicine | North America | Microsimulation | Chronic Disease/Risk | Social Determinants | Culture/Society -
ArticlePublication 2010Empirically Evaluating Decision-Analytic Models
To augment model credibility, evaluation via comparison to independent, empirical studies is recommended. The authors …
To augment model credibility, evaluation via comparison to independent, empirical studies is recommended. The authors developed a structured reporting format for model evaluation and conducted a structured literature review to characterize current model evaluation recommendations and practices. As an illustration, they applied the reporting format to evaluate a microsimulation of human papillomavirus and cervical cancer. The model's outputs and uncertainty ranges were compared with multiple outcomes from a study of long-term progression from high-grade precancer…
Calibration/Validation | Health/Medicine | North America | Microsimulation | Infectious Diseases | Chronic Disease/Risk