Ezra's Round Table / Systems Seminar: Beth Hochman (Columbia)

Description

A Surgeon’s Perspective on Operations Research

I will describe practical health systems optimization problems I have faced in the surgical arena before, during, and beyond COVID. I will discuss current approaches to these problems, pitfalls, and ongoing opportunities for investigation, including an initial foray with Lehigh optimization colleagues demonstrating how two different optimization algorithms (DRO and SP) can be applied to schedule OR cases.

Bio:
Beth Hochman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She received her bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Harvard College and her medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She then completed training in general surgery at Columbia University Medical Center followed by fellowship training in Trauma, Emergency Surgery, and Surgical Critical Care at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She is a practicing acute care surgeon and surgical intensivist at Columbia University Medical Center, where she is also Associate Program Director for the general surgery residency program and Co-Director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit.  During COVID, she oversaw ICU triage and bed flow for Columbia’s main hospital and now continues to focus on strategies to improve efficiency of patient care in the perioperative as well as ICU spaces.