Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions for the First 1,000 Days
Crystal D. Karakochuk, Kyly C. Whitfield, Tim J. Green, Klaus Kraemer in The Biology of the First 1,000 Days, 2017
Effective delivery platforms, coverage, and participation are major gaps for all health and nutrition services. Several delivery platforms to reach vulnerable populations exist, but there is dearth of information on what works where, and how to effectively sustain change. Some potential platforms include: the health system, especially antenatal care; community-based nutrition programs; child health days; social protection, especially conditional cash transfers the food environment; and agriculture food-based investments. Making these platforms more effective requires operations research in conjunction with capacity building and personnel training, the creation of technical guidelines, monitoring and evaluation of programs, and advocacy. Delivery mechanisms are highly dependent on the local context, which takes into account community ownership, cultural sensitivity, and the local political economy.
Costing and Financing Nutrition Programs in the Developing World
Bill Pritchard, Rodomiro Ortiz, Meera Shekar in Routledge Handbook of Food and Nutrition Security, 2016
The World Bank report recommended the scale-up to occur in two steps in the event all funding was not available immediately. Step 1 would allocate US$5.5 billion for micronutrient interventions, deworming and behaviour change interventions, and start the capacity development and the initial roll-out of the targeted food-based programs including the therapeutic feeding programs for treatment of severe acute malnutrition. Step 2 (US$6.3 billion) would scale-up the therapeutic feeding programs after the capacity to deliver these interventions in resource-poor settings is built up. This step would also allocate resources for the public provision of complementary food for preventing moderate acute malnutrition. Both steps also include resources for rigorous monitoring and evaluation of large-scale programs, operations research for delivery strategies and for technical support.
Tuberculosis and Poverty: A Clinical Perspective
Peter D O Davies, Stephen B Gordon, Geraint Davies in Clinical Tuberculosis, 2014
Countries outside the United Kingdom, such as Brazil, have also embraced equitable, evidence-based health policy making in the public sector (see portal.saude.gov.br). However, the human resources, time and infrastructure for this knowledge translation work are often in short supply in developing countries. Adding to a requirement to collect, synthesise and appraise a broader range of evidence than effectiveness, including economics, equity and health systems perspectives may overload current capacity in many countries [34,35]. It is encouraging that methodologies for synthesising many different types of evidence are being further refined. Our group has borrowed from corporate sector expertise in operations research and supply chain management to develop an operational modelling approach. This provides a mechanism for using country-specific data on epidemiological and health system variables to inform national and sub-national decision-making on how and when to adopt new tools for TB [36]. The effect of new tools that simplify patient pathways to diagnosis can also be modelled [36]. Combining this approach with transmission modelling may further permit decisions to be based on projected impacts of new TB tools on epidemics over time at the country level [37].
Using mathematical modeling for analysis of the impact of client choice on preventive healthcare facility network design
Published in International Journal of Healthcare Management, 2021
Mohammad Mahdi Ershadi, Hossein Shams Shemirani
Kriegel et al. (2015) focused on improving the efficiency of healthcare services under certain quality requirements and cost restrictions. They identified different perspectives and needs of the relevant stakeholders in their model [4]. In the other paper, Kriegel et al. (2016) focused on quality improvement of care and the usage of resources in a hospital by patient logistics models [5]. Saghafian et al. (2015) reviewed approximately 350 related papers to indicate the influence of operations research/management in hospital emergency departments, and assist both researchers and practitioners with the operations research/management techniques already available to optimize patient flow in emergency departments [18]. Abe et al. (2016) focused on operations research methods that have been applied to hospital operations to improve efficiency. They developed a historical timeline of key events in US healthcare from the late 1940s to 2015 and separate the timeline into four eras: Expansion, Cost Control, Reform, and Accountability [19]. Javanmardi et al. (2017) focused on a service network design problem that the utility function was incorporated in the objective function, and the constraints set [20].
Assessing the Impact of Medical Laboratory Resource Allocations on Hospital Finances
Published in Hospital Topics, 2019
Dan Friesner, Matthew Q. McPherson, Kelly Haugen
Other studies in the literature address the same issues from an operations research, rather than a clinical process improvement, perspective. Leaven and Qu (2014) use stochastic programing methods to more efficiency schedule phlebotomists in the laboratory. Leaven (2014) uses analytic network process modeling to identify those stages of medical laboratory production that are most likely to drive (in) efficiency in the department or cost center. Leaven (2016) uses regression modeling to predict which tests are most likely to be ordered from the medical laboratory. With this information, laboratory operations can be adjusted to better meet the needs of those departments or cost centers ordering tests. The relationship between more efficient processing and fulfilling of testing orders and overall hospital financial performance is not addressed in this study.
Maximizing clinical rotation placements for US medical students: exploring an optimization model
Published in Medical Education Online, 2022
Gary L. Beck Dallaghan, Xi Lin, J. Kyle Melvin, Julie Golding, Beat Steiner, Vidyadhar Kulkarni
The field of operations research employs analytic techniques to solve complex problems [13]. The scope of problems applying operations research techniques can range from manufacturing plant schedule optimization [14] to electrical brain stimulation [15]. Mixed integer programming is an optimization model that can be formulated through decision variables that have linear relationships. Decision variables are often binary integer variables that can model yes or no decisions as the model is constructed. Using mixed integer programming, various constraints can also be added to the equation, such as attending clinic only on certain days each week. Decision variables and constraints can then be used to address the objective function.
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