Oh, what a relief it was to spend five days at an event where fact-based, data-driven decisions are the norm rather than the exception. An event where “fake news” masquerading as “real news” is exposed for what it is, and “real news” is given the attention it deserves. Just for fun, toss in a heaping helping of the national pastime showcased on its grandest stage – the World Series – and you’ve got my version of heaven on Earth.
Data can appear lifeless and dull on the surface – especially government data – but the thought of it should actually get you excited. Data is a very interesting and powerful thing. First off, data is exactly the stuff we bother to write down – and for good reason. But its potential far transcends functions such as tracking and bookkeeping: Data encodes great quantities of experience, and computers can learn from that experience to make everything work better.
One sunny Sunday morning this past October, I realized that it had been exactly 25 years since the day I completed and turned in my dissertation, a not-very-interesting treatise on closed multiclass non-Markovian queueing networks. Impulsively pulling the hardbound volume off of my bookshelf for the first time in years, I found myself thumbing through its pages, struggling to make sense of the notation and equations and proofs. Though parts of the dusty old tome seemed vaguely familiar, on the whole it still seemed to have been written by a complete stranger, someone far more intelligent, disciplined, motivated and passionate about analytical work than the middle-aged man who was trying his best to slog through it.
The last two months were eventful for healthcare. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) endured another repeal-and-replace attack in congress. The latest bill, known as the Graham-Cassidy bill, was withdrawn by Senate Republican leaders when it became clear that the bill would not receive the 50 votes needed for passage. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) didn’t have time to score the bill by the Sept. 30 deadline, but at one point it seemed the Senate would go forward with the vote anyway. That was surprising given the negative reaction the bill and its predecessors received from many healthcare stakeholders, as well as the public.
Newly-elected members of the 2018 INFORMS Board; CAP accreditation; Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler; new Editor's Cut; and more.
The Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) was first held in 1967 as the Conference on the Applications of Simulation Using GPSS. As we celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, we are proud that the conference is widely regarded today as the premier international forum for disseminating recent advances in the field of dynamic systems modeling and simulation. In addition to a broadly scoped, high-quality technical program, WSC is the annual meeting place for simulation researchers, practitioners and vendors spanning a wide array of disciplines and working across industry, government, military, service and academic sectors. This year’s conference will be held Dec. 3-6 in Las Vegas at the Red Rock Resort.
This article is part solution, part retrospective and part tribute to my longtime friend and colleague, John Toczek, the longtime author of the “The PuzzlOR” column in OR/MS Today and the “Thinking Analytically” column in Analytics magazine. In the last issue of both publications, John “cryptically” announced that he was ending his column as his “day job” had expanded and demanded more of his time.
In the last few articles I tried to put the spotlight on new developments in healthcare around the world. As we are getting closer to the end of 2019, I am energized to see positive movements in the healthcare analytics and health information technology space continuing worldwide. Let’s look at what is happening at home first.
