In what other ways might optimization be used to maximize healthcare delivery? What types of processes and workflows are best served by optimization in health services organizations?
Optimization is a vital prescriptive analytic technique that healthcare administrators can use to help address challenges in effective and efficient healthcare delivery. Health decision makers may seek to find optimal solutions for a particular objective given various constraints. For example, optimization is often used for generating nursing staff schedules to ensure appropriate staff coverage with varying patient inflows.
For this Assignment, you will be using optimization techniques to evaluate two separate medical problems, one involving mechanical heart valves and another involving a pharmaceutical company. Review the resources for this week, and examine the different optimization techniques that can be used for this Assignment.
For Chapter 13, problems 36 and 42, you will need to download the files P13_36.xlsx and P13_42.xlsx from the textbook companion website http://www.cengage.com/cgi-wadsworth/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M20b&product_isbn_issn=9781305947542. Under “Book Resources”, click on “Student Downloads” to view the downloadable files. Click “Problem Files” and download the zipped file 1305947541_538885.zip. Open the zipped file, and select folder “Problem Files” and then select folder “Chapter 13” to access the files P13_36.xlsx and P13_42.xlsx.
