PIE # 110 - Strategic Partnership of Healthcare and System Engineering
(11.09.2016) Bohdan "Bo" W. Oppenheim
Strategic Partnership of Healthcare and System Engineering
In 2014 the White House Council of Advisors on Science and Technology published an alarmist report recommending that Systems Engineering be immediately applied to complex healthcare challenges which exceed the traditional skillsets of both medical professionals and administrators. This gave rise to a new body of knowledge called Healthcare Systems Engineering.
The lecture will begin with a discussion of the current highly imperfect state of U.S. healthcare and the significant technical and organizational challenges it faces. Next, Systems Engineering will be introduced. It originated in the 1950s in the U.S. Ballistic missile industry to assure perfect integration of those complex systems. Systems engineering is really more of a management than engineering.
The main part of the lecture will be devoted to examples and benefits of applying Systems Engineering to Healthcare, including:
· Integration of fragmented healthcare elements
· Healthcare informatics and electronic record systems
· Interoperability and development of medical devices
· Modeling and simulations
· Streamlining healthcare operations
· Improving medical treatments from big data analytics
· Dealing with increasing complexity of healthcare systems, and others.
Finally, very briefly, the new Master’s program in Healthcare Systems Engineering created at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in partnership with Kaiser Permanente will be described. This LMU program is recognized as being among the best in the nation.
The lecture will be in English using Power Point slides.