The goal of this workshop is to bring together experts from the fields of medicine and operations research in order to identify and address important issues pertinent to improving the cost, quality, efficiency, and efficacy of health systems. Events where experts in both fields can interact are scarce, and this workshop is unique in its expected ability to initiate and foster research collaborations among leading researchers in the two fields that can, through the synergy of their respective expertise, better address the next generation of health systems challenges.
A large number of problems in medicine and health systems can benefit from insights and capabilities developed in the field of mathematical modeling and optimization. At the same time, the difficulty of many of these problems is expected to require new methodological contributions in the field of operations research: accommodating data and model uncertainties, the large-scale nature of real-world problems, the dynamics of changing human anatomy, interplay of systems across scales, and competing policies and criteria, etc. Therefore, this workshop has the potential to advance knowledge in both fields. In addition to allowing key participants from both fields to participate, this award will also allow a large number of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and medical interns to take part in the workshop as well.
