An integrated mathematical approach to synchronise and optimise hospital operations. This project aims to develop an integrated mathematical approach to synchronise and optimise patient scheduling systems of different departments to ensure that the hospital’s assets and related resources are used efficiently. The project’s aim is to investigate patient flow, process delay, and the interaction and inter-dependence of departments within the hospital to reduce access block (bottleneck) and subseque ....An integrated mathematical approach to synchronise and optimise hospital operations. This project aims to develop an integrated mathematical approach to synchronise and optimise patient scheduling systems of different departments to ensure that the hospital’s assets and related resources are used efficiently. The project’s aim is to investigate patient flow, process delay, and the interaction and inter-dependence of departments within the hospital to reduce access block (bottleneck) and subsequent overcrowding. This project aims to smooth the running of the hospital, improve the efficiency of patient throughput, reduce waiting times, and revolutionise hospital planning and scheduling.Read moreRead less
Mathematical Decision Support to Optimise Hospital Capacity and Utilisation. Hospital planners and executives regularly contend with challenging capacity related decisions. Decisions relating to prioritisation, allocation and sharing of resources have a profound impact on productivity, efficiency and patient outcomes. There is a lack of data-driven or quantitative decision support to make well-informed capacity related decisions of a strategic or tactical nature in a single hospital, or across a ....Mathematical Decision Support to Optimise Hospital Capacity and Utilisation. Hospital planners and executives regularly contend with challenging capacity related decisions. Decisions relating to prioritisation, allocation and sharing of resources have a profound impact on productivity, efficiency and patient outcomes. There is a lack of data-driven or quantitative decision support to make well-informed capacity related decisions of a strategic or tactical nature in a single hospital, or across a regional healthcare system. This project aims to deliver decision support for holistic hospital capacity assessment and planning optimisation. This will yield significant benefits for the health sector, providing a tool to optimise the allocation of resources and provision of infrastructure for regional hospital services.Read moreRead less
Designing Robust Reactive Scheduling System for Emergency Medical Services. The job shop approach to reactive scheduling system for Emergency Departments promises considerable benefits over existing approaches, and allows problems of large size and complexity to be solved with great accuracy. The application of research results in Australia has the potential to:
- provide benchmarks in ED scheduling;
- reduce patients waiting times and rejections by better planning of patient schedules of em ....Designing Robust Reactive Scheduling System for Emergency Medical Services. The job shop approach to reactive scheduling system for Emergency Departments promises considerable benefits over existing approaches, and allows problems of large size and complexity to be solved with great accuracy. The application of research results in Australia has the potential to:
- provide benchmarks in ED scheduling;
- reduce patients waiting times and rejections by better planning of patient schedules of emergency departments;
- leads to less costs for staff and resources;
- enhance the ability of managers to control operations in an efficient manner and minimise conflicts; and
- to increase efficiency of emergency departments, leading to lower operating and capital cost.
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Improving productivity: theory and application to Australian hospitals. This project aims to improve existing methods for analysing productivity and efficiency of organisations. The new methods will be applied to Australian hospitals, to analyse their productivity and efficiency, identify the best-practices and their determinants and recommend improvements and necessary reforms. The high level of healthcare costs in Australia, about 5 percent of gross domestic product, as well as their rapid and ....Improving productivity: theory and application to Australian hospitals. This project aims to improve existing methods for analysing productivity and efficiency of organisations. The new methods will be applied to Australian hospitals, to analyse their productivity and efficiency, identify the best-practices and their determinants and recommend improvements and necessary reforms. The high level of healthcare costs in Australia, about 5 percent of gross domestic product, as well as their rapid and accelerating growth, imply that application of methods developed through this project may save billions of dollars and, more importantly, thousands of lives. An expected outcome of this project will be superior theoretical and practical methods for analysing productivity and efficiency of economic systems, to enhance understanding of the potential for improvements and of the necessary reforms.Read moreRead less
Quantifying the impact of ambulance diversion for better stroke patient outcomes. It has been established that specialised care of stroke patients can significantly improve their outcomes. However, diverting ambulances to specialised stroke centres may affect the response time for future emergencies. This research aims to model the many complex response time factors and provide a quantitative measure of the impact of diversion.
Determining features that separate groups of protein sequences. This project aims to develop mathematical approaches for determining features that distinguish one group of proteins from another, based on their amino acid sequences. The groups of sequences will reflect different outcomes, so that identifying the fundamental features can result in targeted interventions against the poorer outcome. A simple comparison at each position or of known features can fail to determine robust differentiator ....Determining features that separate groups of protein sequences. This project aims to develop mathematical approaches for determining features that distinguish one group of proteins from another, based on their amino acid sequences. The groups of sequences will reflect different outcomes, so that identifying the fundamental features can result in targeted interventions against the poorer outcome. A simple comparison at each position or of known features can fail to determine robust differentiators and so more complex methods are required. The project will, for example, help identify HIV vaccine targets by comparing early HIV transmission sequences from those in chronic infection. The methods will be applicable to viral proteins where high mutation rates make this task even more complex.Read moreRead less
Evaluating the long-term costs and benefits of community-based initiatives. The ultimate benefit from the research is a more efficient allocation of public funds to provide public services, i.e. an increase in the gain derived from the government budget. The relative advantages of alternative methods of delivering government services are subject to significant uncertainty, which means that policy decisions are often poorly informed. Improvements in the accuracy of predicting the costs and benefi ....Evaluating the long-term costs and benefits of community-based initiatives. The ultimate benefit from the research is a more efficient allocation of public funds to provide public services, i.e. an increase in the gain derived from the government budget. The relative advantages of alternative methods of delivering government services are subject to significant uncertainty, which means that policy decisions are often poorly informed. Improvements in the accuracy of predicting the costs and benefits of complex community-based initiatives will help policymakers identify the set of initiatives that provide the best outcomes for the community they serve, as well as informing the optimal specification of the individual initiatives.Read moreRead less
New theory and methods for robust global optimisation: modern decision-making under uncertain conditions. The project will produce enhanced optimisation methodologies for solving a wide range of industrial and scientific problems that are affected by data uncertainty and are currently too complex to be solved. The work has the potential to improve the quality and the performance of various Australian industries and many areas of scientific research.
Statistical and mathematical modelling to improve health care outcomes in hospitals. The aim of this project is to develop new quantitative techniques based on mathematical and statistical modelling that improve the outcomes of health care in hospitals. Hospital outcomes for patients are sub-optimal due to adverse events such as hospital acquired infections and fully stretched facilities. Research from this project will lead to resource usage being optimised using operations research; the tra ....Statistical and mathematical modelling to improve health care outcomes in hospitals. The aim of this project is to develop new quantitative techniques based on mathematical and statistical modelling that improve the outcomes of health care in hospitals. Hospital outcomes for patients are sub-optimal due to adverse events such as hospital acquired infections and fully stretched facilities. Research from this project will lead to resource usage being optimised using operations research; the transmission of hospital acquired infections being better understood using mathematical models; and better monitoring of adverse events and analyses of studies using statistical tools. Opportunities will be provided for hospital staff to acquire knowledge of the significance of these outcomes .Read moreRead less
Maximizing Dimensional Efficiency With Minimal Cardinality Pattern Combinations. Making optimal use of dimensional capacity is often fundamental to the efficiency of processes in science and industry. Many important applications use combinations of patterns to achieve this. For example, in paper and in steel manufacturing, reels are divided lengthwise into cutting patterns, combined so as to minimize waste. In medicine, radiation patterns are combined to effectively treat cancerous tumours. ....Maximizing Dimensional Efficiency With Minimal Cardinality Pattern Combinations. Making optimal use of dimensional capacity is often fundamental to the efficiency of processes in science and industry. Many important applications use combinations of patterns to achieve this. For example, in paper and in steel manufacturing, reels are divided lengthwise into cutting patterns, combined so as to minimize waste. In medicine, radiation patterns are combined to effectively treat cancerous tumours. By addressing the common mathematical structure underlying pattern combination, this project will account for a hitherto neglected critical factor - the solution cardinality - making fully optimized solutions available for the first time to many applications in science and industry.Read moreRead less