A Model Approach

Dr. Julie Ivy希望每个人都能少花钱time and money on their health care.

So when she learned that hospitals were having a difficult time deciding how much medication to order she knew there had to be a better way to manage the inventory. Without a solution, hospitals could continue to spend lots of money on medication that wound up in trash bins or become inundated with sick people and not enough drugs to treat them.

Ivy, above at right, is one of about 20 NC State faculty members and graduate students in theEdward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineeringworking in the emerging field of health systems engineering. These researchers strive to make health care more organized, efficient and cost-effective—results that keep patients healthy and save everybody money.

他们认为医疗保健作为互连系统，重点是医疗保健和医疗决策。他们在正确的时间内向医生提供指出药物;寻找最有效的癌症筛查方法;并且，由于疾病控制和预防中心的120万美元的批准，改善了北卡罗来纳州的健康警报网络，这是一个系统在州所有健康紧急情况下在同一页面中保存健康工作者的系统。

Systems for Success

Students interested in the field are gaining hands-on experience in the department’s health systems engineering concentration, established in 2009. This certificate program, led byDr. Stephen Roberts, the A. Doug Allison Distinguished Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering, provides students with a paid mentored internship at a sponsoring health organization.

专业知识的需求正在增长，因为处方药，医院护理，医生的费用和其他服务继续增加。

Health systems engineers look for ways to give patients, doctors and hospitals the most bang for their health care buck. Quantitative modeling, a method using mathematical equations to predict behavior and simulate health care-related situations, plays a major role.

“With simulation, we try to create a computer model of the particular system, whether it’s a pharmacy or a laboratory,” Roberts said. “Then we experiment with it to find a better system.”

Ivy’s work with NC State alumnaDr. Anita Vila-Parrish, teaching assistant professor and director of undergraduate programs in the department, holds promise for improving inventory management policies at hospitals.

“You can get what you need, at the best possible price, when you need it,” said Ivy, associate professor of industrial and systems engineering.

Timing the Treatment

The engineers are also interested in the early detection of different types of cancer. Ivy, Roberts andDr. Brian Denton工业和系统工程副教授，分别比较乳腺癌，结肠直肠癌和前列腺癌的筛查方法。他们正在寻找筛选时间，频率和成本，所有人都朝着早期寻找最有效的方式来寻找最有效的方法。

Denton is also using modeling to show how heart disease progresses in patients affected by a condition that causes more deaths per year than breast cancer and AIDS combined—diabetes.

Her research with doctoral student Jennifer Mason focuses specifically on patients living with type 2 diabetes. Their recent work revealed that only 48 percent of patients who were prescribed statins to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke—were taking the prescribed dose regularly after one year.

For diabetics, who are at particularly high risk for heart attack and stroke, the findings underscore how important it is to stick to their medications.

Results like these give patients, policy makers and hospital staff vital information that can save time, money and lives.

“There’s going to be an increasing need for people who look at these systems of health care,” Roberts said. “And NC State engineers will be prepared for the job.”