Closing the Loop by Operationalizing Systems Engineering and Design (CLOSED)
Motivation:
Specific Aims :
Aim 1:​Use systems engineering and patient engagement to design, develop, and refine a highly reliable “closed loop” system for diagnostic tests and referrals that ensures diagnostic orders and follow-up occur reliably within clinically- and patient-important time-frames.
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Aim 2: Use systems engineering and patient engagement to design, develop, and refine a highly reliable “closed loop” system for symptoms that ensures clinicians receive and act on feedback about evolving symptoms and physical findings of concern to patients or clinicians.
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Aim 3: Design for generalizability across health systems more broadly so that the processes created in Aims 1 and 2 are effective in (1) a practice in an underserved community, (2) a large tele-medicine system, and (3) a representative range of simulated other health system settings and populations.
Partners:
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Approach:
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Results to Date:
2011 Media Stories

Applying Engineering to Healthcare: A Northeastern University Professor's Innovative Approach to Improving the Healthcare Industry
October 18th, 2011
Some of the toughest problems facing the healthcare industry today cannot be tackled on the front lines of patient care. Nurses and physicians cannot solve such problems at the bedsides of patients. Instead, as a Northeastern University professor contends, systems engineers can solve these complex healthcare problems using computers.

Engineering New Health-Care Solutions
October 12th, 2011
At Tuesday's meeting, held in Raytheon Amphitheater, James Benneyan, the director of Northeastern's Center of Health Organization Transformation, spoke about the need for a systems engineering approach to solving complex health-care problems.

Taking Health Care Solutions to New Heights
September 28th, 2011
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Northeastern's healthcare systems engineering program aims to improve efficiency, safety, and access to health care in much the same way airlines, banks, and other businesses optimize their operations. As Vin Sahney, Institute for Healthcare Improvement co-founder puts it, "I always say, 'If you see a good idea, be the first one to take it and apply it.'"
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The Man Who Declared War on Waste
August 26th, 2011
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In the battle to reduce a national health care bill in excess of $2.5 trillion, eradicating waste and inefficiency may be "the low hanging fruit" of cost savings - in this case, as Belson and his students have identified: "moving patients through a hospital more quickly and efficiently."

Systems Engineering Reemerges as a Hospital Design Tool
August 1st, 2011
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"Our objective basically is to help our partners improve by developing analytical tools - in this case, tools to help people who are designing or redesigning facilities understand before they build what the workflow will be like," Benneyan explains.
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Society for Health Systems Conference
February 17-19th, 2011
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Benneyan moderated a panel at the national SHS conference on the role of industrial engineering to transform healthcare and how to effectively manage hospital industrial engineering departments. He also presented research on hospital readmission rates. CHOT sponsored the SHS student paper competition. HSyE's poster on our overall healthcare industrial engineering program drew strong interest.
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2010 Media Stories

INFORMS Research Finalist for TBI Care Optimization
November 10th, 2010
VERC center Ph.D. candidate Hande Musdal was a finalist for the best INFORMS research poster: "Systems Engineering Models for the Silent Injuries of Modern Military Conflicts"

Study Examines How Much Better Hospitals and Doctors Would Work If They Ran Like Airlines
September 21st, 2010
The National Science Foundation/U.S. News & World Report ask the question: "Airlines protect themselves from passenger 'no-shows' by overbooking. Could the same approach - overbooking patients - work in a doctor's office or hospital?

Reducing Health Care Costs, Improving Care
September 20th, 2010
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"Health care is the biggest sector of our economy and is riddled with problems," said James Benneyan, professor of industrial engineering and operations research in Northeastern's College of Engineering. "We are trying to do in health care what others have done in aviation, manufacturing, and other industries."
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Systems Engineering for Better Healthcare
September 13th, 2010
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Thirty percent of all healthcare costs are due to poor quality, $9 billion in costs and 98,000 deaths are caused by medical error, and only 55% of patients are shown to receive the best care. The U.S. healthcare system ranks last or close to last among developed nations in every dimension - safety, access, efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and patient-centeredness.

Wonkbook: Berwick to CMS; DOJ Files Against Arizona; EPA Moves
July 7th, 2010
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As an issue, quality - as compared to cost and access - is quite young, and Berwick is frequently credited with securing its place in the discussion, and saving many lives in the process.
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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally
June 23rd, 2010
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The U.S. health system is the most expensive in the world, but comparative analyses consistently show the United States underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance.
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New Members Join CHOT
May 15th, 2010
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The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded funding to Northeastern University in Boston to become a partner university in the Center for Health Organization Transformation with the Texas A&M Health Science Center and Georgia Tech University.

Imagine if Health Care Operated Like a Well-Oiled Machine
February 18th, 2010
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We're putting together an expert team of engineers and hospital administrators to improve health care. Given Northeastern's strength in interdisciplinary research, it's a combination that makes perfect sense to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
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2009 Media Stories

Veterans Health Care to Get an Injection of Industrial Engineering
August 5th, 2009
Northeastern University has partnered with the New England Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system, establishing a systems engineering center to address concerns including access, waits and delays, safety, optimal care, efficiency, equity and effectiveness.
2008 Media Stories

Institute for Healthcare Improvement - Defining Quality: Aiming for a Better Healthcare System
October 21st, 2008
So you want to improve the quality of health care. But what, specifically, should you aim to improve? In this video, IHI's former CEO Don Berwick describes a 2001 report by the Institute of Medicine, Crossing the Quality Chasm, that laid the foundation for health care reform all over the world.
Media Stories Archive