Benneyan, James (Healthcare Systems Engineering Program, Northeastern University)
James Benneyan
Northeastern University
334 Snell Engineering Center
Boston, MA 02115
Phone: 617-373-2975
Fax: 617-373-2921
Email: jbenneyan@coe.neu.edu
Website: http://www.coe.neu.edu/healthcare
Topics:
Healthcare Systems Engineering and Operations Research: Past, Present, Future
Problems with our healthcare system are well-known and staggering, including poor access, inefficient processes, equity disparities, practice variability, and patient safety issues, all at enormous costs (now estimated to exceed $2.7 trillion, 1.4 million medical errors, and 98,000 deaths annually). The enormity of this crisis has prompted the National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and numerous others to advocate greater application of systems engineering and operations research over a decade ago, yet not much has changed. Management science, by whatever name, in fact has a long healthcare history, recently enjoying its fourth renaissance within academia. This talk is divided roughly into thirds - discussing the history of healthcare IEOR, examples of current applications, and important future directions if our field is to have more profound impact. (Intermediate)
Background:
- PhD (IEOR), University of Massachusetts, Amherst MA
- MS (IEOR), University of Massachusetts, Amherst MA
- BA (Mathematics), Hamilton College, Clinton NY
Dr. James Benneyan is director of the Healthcare Systems Engineering Program at Northeastern University, including two healthcare IEOR centers funded by the National Science Foundation and the Veterans Health Administration. Their research spans healthcare systems engineering broadly – including probabilistic optimization, quality engineering, patient safety, scheduling and logistics, network optimization, disease surveillance, and comparative effectiveness methods. Benneyan is past vice president of the Institute for Industrial Engineers, past president of the Society for Health Systems, a fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and serves on numerous editorial boards. Prior to joining Northeastern, Jim was senior systems engineer at Harvard Community Health Plan, industrial engineer at IBM and Digital Equipment Corporation, and statistical consultant at Productivity Sciences Incorporated.