Dear INFORMS Community:
Apologies for the poor formatting in my last post! Please ignore that message. Here is the text again, hopefully this works:
We are pleased to announce the first version of a new textbook, Healthcare Engineering, Analytics and Decision Sciences. The co-authors are Sanjay Mehrotra PhD (Professor, Northwestern University), Kevin Bui PhD (University of California, Irvine), and Hari Balasubramanian PhD (Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst).
While the material in the textbook is copyrighted (CC-BY-NC_ND), the pdf of the book and individual chapters can be downloaded for free by instructors and students at the following website:
https://sites.google.com/view/healthcareengineering/
The text is suited for students (undergraduate or Masters) who have taken introductory courses in probability, basics of calculus, and linear algebra. Depending on the chapters used from the book, the developed courses can be introductory (e.g., Junior level) or more advanced (Senior/Masters level). Each chapter uses relevant examples from from healthcare contexts to illustrate concepts, and contains a computational section with examples worked out in R. We have also included an appendix that contains introductory material on probability and optimization.
We are aware the current version of the book is not "perfect", but it is a humble start in the direction of making a difference to improve health systems globally through student education and training. Given the breadth of topics covered in the book, the chapters are written succinctly to include the concepts that are most important at the introductory level. Efforts have been made to balance practicality with methodological rigor. Several of these chapters can develop into their own courses. For example, optimization in healthcare can be a course in itself. The same can be said of data analytics, decision analysis, Markov chains, queueing and simulation.
We are planning to publish physical copies of the book in two parts -- one focused on analytics, the other focused on operations research/decision science methods.
In the meantime, we welcome feedback about content, including comments on specific chapters, typographical errors, errors in notation, and suggestions for improvement. All feedback and questions can be emailed to HealthcareEngineering2024@gmail.com. We expect to update the textbook periodically as we receive feedback.
Happy holidays to everyone!
Sanjay Mehrotra
Kevin Bui
Hari Balasubramanian
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Hari Balasubramanian
Professor of Industrial Engineering
Dept. of Mechanical and Industrial Eng.
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Email:
hbalasub@admin.umass.edu------------------------------