2016 INFORMS Annual Meeting Program

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INFORMS Nashville – 2016
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107A-MCC
Emerging Methods for Healthcare Analytics
and Visualization
Sponsored: Health Applications
Sponsored Session
Chair: Rahul C Basole, Georgia Institute of Technology, 85 Fifth Street
NW, Atlanta, GA, 30332, United States,
1 - A Semi-supervised Learning Approach To Enhance Health Care
Community-based Question Answering
Papis Wongchaisuwat, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL,
United States,
Diego Klabjan, Siddhartha R Jonnalagadda
Community-based Question Answering (CQA) sites play an important role in
addressing health information need. We developed an algorithm to automatically
answer health-related questions based on past questions and answers. Our
algorithm uses information retrieval techniques to identify candidate answers
from resolved QA. In order to rank these candidates, we implemented a semi-
supervised learning algorithm that extracts the best answer to a question. On our
dataset, the semi-supervised learning algorithm has an accuracy of 86.2% while
UMLS-based (health-related) features used in the model enhance the algorithm’s
performance by approximately 8%.
2 - Visual Analytics For Population Level Health Analysis
Rahul C Basole, Georgia Institute of Technology, 85 Fifth Street,
Atlanta, GA, 30332, United States, , Mark L.
Braunstein, Hyunwoo Park, Dhruv Mutturaju, Myung Choi,
Richard Starr
We present the design, implementation, and use cases of a FHIR-centric
population health analysis and visualization platform.
3 - Double Sided Network Externalities In Healthcare
Information Exchanges
Emre Muzaffer Demirezen, School of Management, Binghamton
University, School of Management Binghamton University, State
University of New York AA278, Binghamton, NY, 13902, United
States, , Subodha Kumar, Arun Sen
Based on our interactions with different healthcare information exchange (HIE)
providers, we develop models to study participation levels and sustainability of
HIEs. We examine how heterogeneity among healthcare practitioners (HPs)
affects participation of HPs in HIEs. We find that, under certain conditions, low-
gain HPs choose not to join HIEs. Hence, we explore several measures that can
encourage more participation in HIEs and find that it might be beneficial to: (i)
establish a second HIE in the region, (ii) propose more value to the low-gain HPs,
or (iii) offer or incentivize value-added services. We present several other
interesting and useful results.
WB22
107B-MCC
Empirical Analysis of Resource Utilization
Sponsored: Health Applications
Sponsored Session
Chair: David Anderson, CUNY Baruch, 55 Lexington Ave, New York,
NY, 10010, United States,
1 - Comprehensive Prediction Models For Colorectal
Cancer Mortality
David Anderson, CUNY Baruch,
Having accurate, unbiased prognosis information can help patientsand providers
make better decisions about what course of treatment to take.Using a
comprehensive dataset of all colorectal cancer patients in Califoria, wegenerate
predictive models that estimate short-term and medium-term survivalprobabilities
for patients based on their clinical and demographic information.Our study
addresses some of the contradictions in the literature about survival rates and
signicantly improves predictive power over the performance of anymodel in
previously published papers.
2 - Slow First, Fast Later: Temporal Speed-up In Service Episodes Of
Finite Duration
Aditya Jain, CUNY Baruch,
Sarang Deo
Many services comprise repeated episodes of finite duration wherein customers
must be served before the end of that episode leading to non-stationary
operational dynamics. We hypothesize and empirically validate (using data from a
high volume tertiary care outpatient department) the presence of a ``slow first,
fast later’’ work speed pattern in such environments. This pattern allows sufficient
build-up of inventory earlier for more efficient utilization of faster work speed
later. As a natural corollary of this pattern, we also find that greater anticipated
workload, which causes faster inventory build-up, leads to a greater increase in
work speed earlier during the service episode.
3 - The Impact Of Reminder Calls For A Pediatrics Practice
Kiatikun Louis Luangkesorn, Assistant Professor, University of
Pittsburgh, 1028 Benedum Hall, 3700 Ohara St, Pittsburgh, PA,
15261, United States, , Tricia Pil
Primary care practices often use reminder phone calls to reduce missed
appointments. The same factors that make reminder calls useful can also be used
for improving patient engagement in the form of well child visits and
vaccinations. However, studying the impact in a clinical setting can be difficult
because it may not be practical or ethical to conduct random control trials on
patients. We present two studies, one in the context of a series of interventions to
inprove human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and to increase the fraction of
patients who meet the recommendation of annual well child visits within a multi-
practice pediatrics network.
WB23
108-MCC
Optimal Treatment & Screening of Chronic
Care Patients
Sponsored: Health Applications
Sponsored Session
Chair: Huaiyang Zhong, Stanford University, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford,
CA, 94305, United States,
1 - Optimal Statin Therapy Plan For Diabetic Patients
Saeideh Mirghorbani, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL,
United States,
The importance of cardiovascular risks in diabetic patients has been emphasized
because of their high cardiovascular mortality rate. Statins are a class of medicines
used to lower blood cholesterol levels and mitigate the risk of heart problems. In
this research, we address the optimal time to initiate and terminate statin therapy
considering patient adherence as well as the influence of statin side-effects. We
develop a finite horizon, discounted Markov decision process in which patients
transition through health states. The objective is to maximize the expected
quality-adjusted life years.
2 - Fairness In Down Syndrome Screening
Jia Yan, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United
States, Turgay Ayer, Pinar Keskinocak
Detection and false positive rates of prenatal screening for Down syndrome
depend on the selected risk cutoff values. In current practice, one-size-fit-all type
cut off values are being used, which may lead to suboptimal outcomes and
unfairness among different age groups. We first propose a Monte Carlo simulation
model to capture prevalence and test outcomes in the population. Then, we
combine this simulation model with an optimization modeling framework to
identify the optimal age-specific risk cutoff values by taking fairness among
different age groups into account. Our findings indicate that age-specific cutoff
values significantly improve health outcomes and fairness.
3 - Improving The HIV Care Cascade Via Mental Health Interventions
Huaiyang Zhong, Stanford University,
The UNAIDS’ 90-90-90 targets having 90% of HIV-infected people aware of their
status, 90% of diagnosed HIV-positives on antiretroviral therapy (ART), and 90%
of those on ART virally suppressed. In most sub-Saharan African countries, these
percentages are far lower. Developing effective and cost-effective approaches to
improve the HIV care cascade is critical. We focus on one potential opportunity
for improving the HIV care cascade: the provision of antidepressant therapy
(ADT) for HIV-infected individuals with depression.
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