OM Forum—The Vital Role of Operations Analysis in Improving Healthcare Delivery

There is now a broad consensus among healthcare professionals that the U.S. healthcare delivery system is woefully inefficient and needs to be radically redesigned. Healthcare costs have always been a driving force in policy and management, but quality has become equally important in driving decisions, particularly since emerging payment systems include metrics on clinical and operational performance. With the increasing use of information technology to capture financial, operational, and clinical data and to coordinate care across time and different venues, there is a growing demand for operations analysts to examine processes of care and provide much-needed insights on how to better utilize resources to improve outcomes while reducing costs. In this paper, I describe some of the essential features of the U.S. healthcare system and some critical issues that provide opportunities for operations researchers to make important contributions.