Advancing Public Health and Medical Preparedness with Operations Research

Authors:
Eva K. Lee;Ferdinand Pietz;Bernard Benecke;Jacquelyn Mason;Greg Burel
Affiliations:
Center for Operations Research in Medicine and HealthCare, NSF I/UCRC Center for Health Organization Transformation, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, ...;Strategic National Stockpile, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia 30322;Global Disease Detection and Emergency Response, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Guatemala City, Guatemala;National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia 30322;Strategic National Stockpile, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia 30322
Venue:
Interfaces
Year:
2013

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Abstract

Planning for a catastrophe involving a disease outbreak with the potential for mass casualties is a significant challenge for emergency managers. Public health experts at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC teamed with operations researchers to address important aspects of mass dispensing: medical supply distribution, locations of dispensing facilities, optimal facility staffing and resource allocation, routing of the population, and dispensing methods. Simulation-optimization technology was integrated into a decision support and data management suite, RealOpt©, for tactical and strategic operational planning. RealOpt has enabled the CDC to provide modern tools that support dynamic planning for emergencies and that establish a knowledge data bank to provide feedback about the deployment of various techniques. The RealOpt suite now has a US user base of over 6,500 public health and emergency directors covering all states, plus many international users. RealOpt has been applied in hundreds of drills and dispensing events, including anthrax preparedness, and for seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccination events.