Matthew J. Liberatore

The analytic hierarchy process in medical and health care decision making : A literature review

This paper presents a literature review of the application of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to important problems in medical and health care decision making. The literature is classified by year of publication, health care category, journal, method of analyzing alternatives, participants, and application type. Very few articles were published prior to 1988 and the level of activity has increased to about three articles per year since 1997. The 50 articles reviewed were classified in seven categories: diagnosis, patient participation, therapy/treatment, organ transplantation, project and technology evaluation and selection, human resource planning, and health care evaluation and policy. The largest number of articles was found in the project and technology evaluation and selection category (14) with substantial activity in patient participation (9), therapy/treatment (8), and health care evaluation and policy (8). The AHP appears to be a promising support tool for shared decision making between patient and doctor, evaluation and selection of therapies and treatments, and the evaluation of health care technologies and policies. We expect that AHP research will continue to be an important component of health care and medical research.

An extension of the analytic hierarchy process for industrial R&D project selection and resource allocation

The research and development project selection decision is concerned with the allocation of resources to a set of proposals for scientific and engineering activities. The project selection and resource allocation process can be viewed as a multiple-criteria decision-making problem, within the context of the long-range and strategic planning process of the firm. The purpose of this paper is explore the applicability of an extension of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for priority setting and resource allocation in the industrial R&D environment. In this paper, an AHP modeling framework for the R&D project selection decision is developed, and is linked to a spreadsheet model to assist in the ranking of a large number of project alternatives. Next, cost-benefit analysis and integer programming are used to assist in the resource allocation decision. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the suitability of this approach as an expert support system, and directions for future research and testing.

A Survey of Operations Research Models and Applications in Homeland Security

Operations research has had a long and distinguished history of work in emergency preparedness and response, airline security, transportation of hazardous materials, and threat and vulnerability analysis. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the formation of the US Department of Homeland Security, these topics have been gathered under the broad umbrella of homeland security. In addition, other areas of OR applications in homeland security are evolving, such as border and port security, cyber security, and critical infrastructure protection. The opportunities for operations researchers to contribute to homeland security remain numerous.

R&D project selection

Abstract The research and development project selection decision is concerned with the allocation of resources to a set of proposals for scientific and engineering activities. The project selection process can be viewed as a multiple-criteria decision-making problem, within the context of the long-range and strategic planning process of the firm. The purpose of this paper is explore the applicability of several approaches, including the Analytic Hierarchy Process, for priority setting and resource allocation in the industrial R&D environment. The incorporation of these models into expert support systems for R&D project selection is discussed.

The Analytics Movement: Implications for Operations Research

The movement toward the increased use of analytics in organizations has generated much discussion by academics and professionals about the impacts and opportunities that analytics offers. Although operations research (OR) has been a driving force in applying quantitative and analytical models for organizational decision making, it is less clear how we as OR practitioners can take advantage of the surging interest in analytics to promote the OR profession and expand its reach. In this paper, we discuss the drivers of the analytics movement, an example of an analytics project, and the opportunities and implications for OR, i.e., the problem scope, models and methods, implementation issues, organizational role, professional skills, and education.

Using the analytic hierarchy process as a clinical engineering tool to facilitate an iterative, multidisciplinary, microeconomic health technology assessment

Many articles have been written about applying decision support systems to clinical tasks, but little has been published about the complex problem of capital equipment decision making in healthcare. This problem has become the domain of health technology assessment experts, but there are few decision support systems reported in the literature. Technology assessment practitioners generally evaluate whether appropriate scienti6c studies exist to justify implementing a technology, or consider the macroeconomic implications that adopting a new technology may have on existing populations, economies, diseases, drugs, procedures, or devices. Following the con6rmation of a technology’s utility, however, the published materials available to assist the individual hospital or health system in their microeconomic health technology assessment (HTA) are very limited. In this study, the analytic hierarchy process is used to support and document the evolution of the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary process of selecting neonatal ventilators for a new women’s health hospital. Although the best ventilator had the highest purchase price, its safety, clinical and technical features, plus lower operating cost factors led to its high score. This study demonstrates the AHPs ability to facilitate an understanding of the underlying criteria and priorities, and to successfully support the hospital’s purchasing negotiation. For these reasons, the AHP should be considered for use as a decision support tool for future HTA projects. Scope and purpose “Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability” Sir William Osler (c. 1904). This article describes the use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to perform a microeconomic Health Technology Assessment (HTA) for the evaluation of expensive and complex critical care neonatal ventilators for a new women’s health facility. This facility is to be built by a mid-size suburban teaching hospital that provides all levels of care up through the most severe trauma cases. Neonatal ventilators are specially designed

Factors influencing the usage and selection of project management software

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and assess those factors that influence the extent of usage, type of usage (planning only versus planning and control), and selection of project management (PM) software by professionals in the field. Discriminant analysis is used to analyze hypotheses relating to these three issues. The analysis is based on the results of a random survey of members of the Project Management Institute. This research was guided by an organizing framework that considers environmental factors (demographics and work environment characteristics), intermediate factors (PM software usage category and historical use patterns), and outcomes (level of software package selected). The analysis reveals strong differences in extent of usage, type of usage, and software selection based on individually significant environmental and intermediate factors. It also provides strong support for the hypotheses relating to extent of software use and level of software package used, while providing qualified support for the hypothesis relating to software use for planning only versus planning and control. These results together validate the organizing framework. Adopters of PM software are advised to consider the findings concerning industry practice as well as their specific needs when selecting and deciding how to use PM software packages.

Incorporating Quality Considerations Into Project Time/Cost Tradeoff Analysis and Decision Making

Existing models and methods of project scheduling implicitly assume uniform quality when evaluating time/cost tradeoffs, but do not model quality explicitly. For a project manager such as a general contractor who subcontracts most tasks of a project, or other project managers who face decisions concerning the level of quality to perform for each task, this is not a realistic assumption. In this paper, we extend the standard discrete time/cost tradeoff problem by assuming that each option for each task is evaluated for its duration, cost, and also its quality. We then provide a mixed integer linear programming model for solving one version of this problem, and illustrate with an example. We next formulate a goal programming mixed integer linear program for a very general version of the problem. This formulation allows for many different definitions of quality, and many combinations of time, cost, and quality goals with preemptive and/or weighted priorities, and is also illustrated with an example. We show how these models can be used to generate quality level curves to illustrate the tradeoffs among time, cost, and quality. These level curves can then be used by project managers to make project scheduling decisions that explicitly model and consider quality as well as time and cost, so that better and more appropriate decisions can be made for a particular situation

GROUP DECISION MAKING IN HIGHER EDUCATION USING THE ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) can be applied to those situations in higher education where a group must evaluate a large number of alternatives. The suggested approach is illustrated using a case study that considers the evaluation of academic research papers at Villanova University. Following the discussion of this successful case study, a second example indicates how the AHP can be applied to the more complex problem of institution-wide strategic planning. These examples clearly demonstrate that the AHP approach is a versatile tool that can be applied to a wide range of important academic evaluation problems.

Project Management Software Usage Patterns and Suggested Research Directions for Future Developments

Although project management software is very visible in publications of the professional societies, it has not been known how much and why it is actually used by project management practitioners, what modeling techniques are used, how such use has evolved over time, and what are the needs of project management professionals for future research. To fill this gap, we designed a survey to gather such information as well as basic demographic information.