Seminars
» Difference between workshops and seminars «
Below we have listed a set of seminars that we feel are of interest to current healthcare organisations and policy leaders. For each topic, we have provided a "what you will learn" in the session. Most of these topics are available for presentation as either a seminar or workshop and to any size audience you anticipate. However, we are not limited to the topics listed. If there is a topic you are interested in, or a specific problem your organisation faces, please feel free to contact us to arrange for a site visit and consultation on developing a seminar tailored to your needs.
Current and recent seminars
- ‘System dynamics modelling of Chlamydia infection.´
- MACH-1: Breaking the Barrier in Hospital Bed Modeling
- Adventures with Waitlists
- Improving OR operations through better processes (An introduction to systems thinking)
- Introduction to Simulation Modelling in Healthcare Workshop
- "Diabetes Quality Measurement Data Collection."
- ‘The RIGHT project: the right tool for the job’
Possible future seminars
- Creating and managing a successful simulation study in Healthcare
- How to effectively and meaningfully study patient flow
- How to promote healthcare engineering in your organisation
- Measuring demand and supply, and narrowing the gap
- Use of averages versus accounting for variance when studying flow and other processes
- Scheduling patients to reduce waiting times for clinics
Speaker - Dr. Sally Brailsford
Date - November 5, 2008
Time - 10:00am - 12:00am
Location - Room MB 101, Mining Building, 170 College Street, Toronto
Sally is Professor of Management Science in the School of Management at the University of Southampton. She obtained a BSc in Mathematics from Kings College London in 1973, but spent most of her early working life as a nurse, before returning to academia in 1988 to undertake a Masters in Operational Research at the University of Southampton, followed by a doctorate on the topic of simulation modelling for HIV and AIDS. She was appointed to a lectureship in the School of Management in 1998.
Beginning with a brief overview of the history of OR modelling in the UK´s National Health Service, this talk describes an application of modelling for Chlamydia, a sexually transmitted infection which is greatly on the increase in the UK.. In this study, a System Dynamics model was developed to evaluate the costs and benefits of various interventions, and geomapping was used with the data from a screening trial in Portsmouth to plot Chlamydia "hot-spots". Finally, socio-economic data was analysed to identify and target areas for screening and treatment. Email an RSVP at your earliest convenience to jennifer@mie.utoronto.ca as space may be limited.
Speaker - Dr. Les Vertesi
Date - November 13, 2008
Time - 5:00pm - 6:30pm
Location - Room 1105, Sandford Fleming Building, 10 Kings College Rd, Toron
Les Vertesi, a career physician with over 30 years experience in major trauma referral hospitals will present this talk. Best known as the founder of the Advanced Life Support paramedic ambulance program of the BC Ambulance service (1975-1985), he was also the founding chairman of the Canadian Medical Association’s accreditation committee on Accreditation of EMS training. Dr. Vertesi has been the BC representative on the Health Council of Canada since 2003. In addition to his specialty certificate in Emergency Medicine, he earned a Master’s Degree in Health Sciences and Clinical Epidemiology in 1989 from UBC where his interest in simulation and modeling began. This lecture will look at Hospital bed modeling and why there has been remarkably little success breaking through the barrier from theoretical research into practical applications that actually change health policy. BC’s Ministry of Health has recently accepted the MACH-1 discrete-event model (Model of Acute Care in Hospitals – version 1) developed by the Complex Systems Modeling Group at the IRMACS Institute of Simon Fraser University and has decided to use it as the basis for their new hospital bed allocation policy. Success required the development and inclusion of at least two concepts new to health modeling before the necessary validity could be achieved. This session will describe that journey and how it is affecting the way hospital data will be collected in the future.
Speaker - Dr. Les Vertesi
Date - November 14, 2008
Time - 11:00pm - 12:30pm
Location - Room MB 101, Mining Building, 170 College Street, Toronto
This lecture concerns waitlists. The activity of waiting for care is not as simple as it seems. Analysis of surgical waitlists in BC reveals that the causes of public frustration are more than just the length of the wait. The modeling work done by the IRMACS team will be highlighted. It began as a way to simply predict the number of cases needed to meet a wait time threshold, but has grown into a means of shedding light on the underlying processes. The elimination of waitlists in Canada poses more of a challenge than most people realize.
Speaker - TBA
Date - January 1, 2009
Time - 9:00am - 5:00pm
Location - TBA
- Learn to examine your processes, and determine if there are elements that can be done “better”. For instance, are there activities that are not required, or can be simplified or done in bulk at the end of the day? Are there tasks that are repeated unnecessarily?
- What are the up and down stream effects of decisions you make in your area? For instance, scheduling all your inpatient procedures in the morning affects the wards in the early afternoon with a sudden influx of patients. How you can plan your operations to either minimize the up/down-stream effects of your decisions, or work together with those areas to improve overall processes across both areas.
Speaker - Professor Micheal Carter,Ms. Daphne Sniekers & Ms. Somayeh Sadat
Date - February 19, 2009
Time - 9:00am - 5:00pm
Location - Haultain Building (HA 411), 170 College Street, Toronto
The University of Toronto’s Centre for Research in Healthcare Engineering (CRHE) will hold its first workshop on Thursday, Feb 19th (9am-5pm) and Friday, Feb 20th (9am-1pm) 2009.
This System Simulation workshop will provide the basic concepts required to understand the purpose and capabilities of simulation models, the process of building simulation models and the application of the simulation models to test various ‘what if’ scenarios. The workshop introduces the audience to the main technical steps of any simulation project, namely input data analysis, basic simulation structure in a simulation software package [Simul8],output data analysis and the running of different ‘what if’ scenarios.
The workshop will be an interactive and hands on experience, working with a simulation software package for the majority of the time. A package of supplementary reading will be supplied.
Lunch will be provided on Thursday Feb 19th.
Workshop Schedule:
Thursday Feb 19th:
• Simulation from A to Z: What is involved? Demonstration through a simple healthcare example
• Steps to successful creation and use of simulation models in healthcare
• Major elements of a simulation model in Simul8 (work entry points, work centres, queues and work exit points)
• In class construction of a simple simulation model of a health care case
• How long should you run the simulation? Setting up the right unit of time, warm-up period and simulation period.
• Input Parameters - various input formats such as determining which is best for your purposes and fitting distributions to data using Best Fit
• Output Analysis
• Verification and Validation
• ‘What if’ Scenario Testing
• Data challenges: What can be done?
• Group Discussion
Friday Feb 20th:
• Full analysis and decision making of a detailed simulated health care case
• Help a fictional clinic determine how to best improve patient access and care (group work)
• Demonstration of some of the more advanced features such as labels, routing, resources, and visual logic
Cost : Free to members of CRHE. $250 to non-members.
Speaker - Dr. Murray Côté
Date - February 26, 2009
Time - 6:00am - 7:00am
Location - James Friesen/Cecil Yip Red Seminar Room, Terrence Donnelly Cent
Murray Côté, PhD, earned a B.A. in political science and an M.B.A. from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada and a Ph.D. in management science from Texas A&M University. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Colorado Denver, he was on the faculty at the University of Florida and Trinity University, San Antonio.
Professor Côté’s primary research interests are in health care operations, including patient flow, capacity planning and management, demand forecasting, and nurse staffing and scheduling. His research findings have been published in Decision Sciences, the European Journal of Operational Research, Health Care Management Science, and Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, among others. In addition, his research has received awards from the Decision Sciences Institute and the Healthcare Financial Management Association.
Professor Côté has obtained extramural funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Outcomes Research Center and the Education and Research Foundation of APICS. He has also consulted for a variety of health care organizations including CIGNA, the Texas Transplant Institute at Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital, and Shands Jacksonville. Professor Côté is currently an investigator for two Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services-funded projects examining how to evaluate the quality of care provided in nursing homes based upon survey deficiencies and staffing levels.
Professor Côté is a member of the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI), the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), and the American Society for Quality (ASQ). He was a past president of the Health Applications Section of INFORMS and is an ASQ-certified quality manager.
Followed by a cheese and wine reception, we look forward to seeing you at this event. Please email an RSVP at your earliest convenience to jennifer@mie.utoronto.ca as space may be limited.
Speaker - Dr. Sally Brailsford
Date - April 8, 2009
Time - 5:00am - 6:00am
Location - Room MC 331, MIE Building, 5 King’s College Road, Toronto, M5S
RIGHT (Research Into Global Healthcare Tools) is a two-year cross-institution project funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. It involves a team of researchers from Brunel University and the Universities of Cambridge, Cardiff, Southampton and Ulster. The ambitious aim of RIGHT was to try to understand why Operations Research modelling methods are not embedded in the mindset and culture of the UK National Health Service, in the way that they are in other sectors such as manufacturing or defence. After surveying the literature, a feasibility study was undertaken which included the development of a “Workbook” presenting these methods to novice users, and an online selection tool which enables the NHS problem-owner to specify the characteristics of their problem and then automatically select the most appropriate method. In addition, RIGHT have engaged in many different ways with the NHS, for example consultative workshops and exemplar projects. RIGHT began in 2007 and is now drawing to a close and currently engaged in seeking funding for Phase 2. In this talk Sally shall describe the project, its main achievements and some of the challenges they have faced, not the least of which was the delays caused by recent changes in the research ethics approval process in the UK.
Sally is Professor of Management Science in the School of Management at the University of Southampton. She obtained a BSc in Mathematics from Kings College London in 1973 and was appointed to a lectureship in the School of Management in 1998. Sally’s research is chiefly in the area of health care modelling - to evaluate treatments and screening programmes, to allocate resources, to redesign processes and to improve systems. She has worked specifically in the disease fields of HIV/AIDS, diabetes, cancer and sexually transmitted diseases, in emergency care and in healthcare information systems. She has twice won the UK OR Society´s Goodeve Medal, in 2004 for system dynamics modelling of emergency health care services in Nottingham, and in 2006 for modelling of chlamydia infection.
Email an RSVP at your earliest convenience to jennifer@mie.utoronto.ca as space may be limited.
Time - Possible future seminar
This session is meant for those with experience in simulation, as a course on how best to deal with the complexities of designing healthcare simulation models.
- Learn of the nuances of using simulation in healthcare.
- Discussion on when simulation is appropriate, and what type of decisions and problems are best approached using simulation.
- Learn how to “sell” simulation to your organisation as an effective and useful decision making tool.
Time - Possible future seminar
- What is patient flow?
- How to track and map out patient flow
- Improving patient flow through analysis of the patient flow map and other visual and analytical tools.
- Conquering patient flow issues, one piece at a time: Patient flow is a complex, multidimensional problem, which makes it very difficult to solve. Patient flow can not be solved across an entire organisation in one shot. Learn how to determine where to start, which small steps to take first, see small results fast, and continue improving in an iterative and effective fashion.
Time - Possible future seminar
- Discussion and advise from experience and examples of how to promote the use of healthcare Engineering/Process Improvement techniques to healthcare.
- Demonstration of the use and value of simulation to healthcare staff, management, and decision makers.
Time - Possible future seminar
- Determine the actual demand for and capacity (supply) of your services.
- Discover innovative and effect ways to reduce the gap between demand and supply by:
- Reducing "wastes", such as unnecessary delays, repetitive tasks, etc.
- Scheduling solutions designed to help manage demand and supply effectively. (e.g. block scheduling)
Time - Possible future seminar
- Showing the difference in robustness of your decisions when using average values versus accounting for variation.
- Discuss how to best evaluate data, and determine if variance needs to be accounted for, and if so, what’s the best way?
Time - Possible future seminar
- Examine various scheduling rules and methods aimed to help reduce waiting time by increasing flow, etc.
- Introduce various methods, and critique each one. Also evaluate their effectiveness in different environments.