Anesthesiologists play a key role in optimizing capacity utilization of operating and procedural rooms, as well as intensive care and inpatient units. Vanderbilt's Department of Anesthesiology supports medical faculty and administrators involved in maximizing operational efficiencies of the healthcare system by performing research in the engineering and business domains, using management sciences and operations management strategies.
The Department of Anesthesiology's Operations Research group exemplifies the department’s stated goal of fostering innovation in all aspects of the delivery of excellent clinical care using system-level thinking.
Members of the Operations Research group have a three-fold objective:
- Undertake scientific research using engineering and business principles to advance the theory and practice of the delivery of care.
- Collaborate and support faculty across the Vanderbilt University Medical Center by performing multi-disciplinary research.
- Promote analytical-based education and training of medical residents, fellows, post-graduate fellows, junior medical faculty and business school students.
The group works closely with the department’s Informatics research division, as well as with the various analytics-oriented departments in the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and School of Medicine.
Vikram Tiwari, PhD, leads the Operations Research group and holds faculty appointments in the Department of Anesthesiology, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Department of Biostatistics, and Owen Graduate School of Management. Dr. Warren Sandberg, MD, PhD, Chair of the Anesthesiology Department, provides guidance and executive oversight of hospital projects.
The group has an active post-doctoral fellowship program. Incoming fellows have either MD or PhD degrees with an interest in pursuing analytical-based research. The fellowship program’s duration is up to two years. To date, the group has guided the following post-doctoral research fellows:
- Teus Kappen, MD, PhD (2015-2016) dr. T.H. Kappen - UMC Utrecht - Dr. Kappen is Associate Professor-medical, and Chief Science Information Officer at UMC Utrecht
- Joonyup Eun, PhD (2016 – 2018) Joonyup Eun's Homepage (google.com) - Associate Professor and Chair of the Department, Graduate School of Management of Technology, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
- Seung Yup Lee, PhD (2020-2022) Seung Yup Lee (uab.edu) - Assistant Professor, Department of Health Services Administration, School of Health Professions, The University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Max Yakovlev, PhD, (GitHub page) (2024+) - Post-Doc Fellow, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University; co-mentored by Operations Research, Department of Anesthesiology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Investigators in Operations Research use diverse research methodologies – linear and non-linear optimization, simulation and systems dynamics modeling, econometric and statistical modeling.
Recent examples of successfully implemented research in practice include
- predicting day-of-surgery case volume (Anesthesiology, 2014, Decision Sciences, 2020)
- perioperative capacity planning (IEEE, 2017, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 2019)
- operational efficiency improvement (Journal of Medical System, 2023, British Journal of Anaesthesia, 2018, Production and Operations Management, 2021)
- innovation and artificial intelligence (Surgical Endoscopy, 2019, Anesthesia and Analgesia, 2018, Journal of Surgical Research, 2021)