Outcomes and Effectiveness Research
Institute for Disease and Disaster Preparedness (IDDP) Educational Programs
Degree Programs
Cornell University, through programs offered initially within the College of Engineering and the Weill Cornell Medical College, will meet national needs for public health professionals educated in the science of response logistics for disease and disaster preparedness. A brief description of these programs follows.
College of Engineering
The School of Operations Research and Information Engineering will collaborate with the Institute for Disaster and Disease Preparedness (IDDP) to offer a Master of Engineering degree in Operations Research with a concentration in Public Health Logistics. Furthermore, through the Field of Operations Research, students will be able to conduct research and write dissertations related to various aspects of response logistics.
Both the Masters and Ph.D. programs will include courses in technical topics such as optimization, probability, statistics, simulation and stochastic processes. There will also be a strong technology track including computer science, hospital information systems, decision support systems, and data mining.
Another set of courses available to students will focus on public health research methods and policy. Such courses will be offered through the College of Human Ecology and Weill Cornell Medical College. For example, they will expand on the Weill Cornell Department of Public Health's existing courses on Research Methods and Decision Analysis, which form the basis for the newly created Master of Science degree program in Clinical Investigation.
Field experience, working with public health emergency response system planners and providers, will complement the course work. This may include projects or internships at the NY-Presbyterian Hospital and Healthcare Network, the NY State government, the New York City Office of Emergency Management (NYC OEM), or at other public health organization offices both domestically and internationally as appropriate.
Weill Cornell
Weill Cornell will collaborate with ORIE to develop within its MS in Clinical Investigation a concentration in public health response logistics. In addition to courses on applied biomedical statistics that will complement offerings from Ithaca, we envision developing several new courses building on the strength of our research enterprise, including:
- Modeling Healthcare Systems (4 Credits)
This course will provide an overview of efforts over the last half-century to create mathematical and computer models of a range of healthcare activities, from scheduling of operating rooms to predicting hospitalizations due to pandemics. Students will be exposed to a variety of modeling methodologies ranging from mathematical models using ordinary differential equations to simulation models to linear programming. Student projects will include working with senior executives in the New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Healthcare System to develop novel models for improved daily healthcare utilization and emergency response.
- Public Health Informatics (4 credits)
This course will address the question of what a national data collection and transmission infrastructure to support public health emergency response should look like, how it should be implemented, and how much it should cost. Distinctions and similarities will be explored between such a system and the clinically-oriented National Health Information Network that has received high-level support from the Federal government. Students will propose feasible pilot programs for testing at NYPHS hospitals.
Cornell Ithaca
A number of new courses will be developed that are targeted to this emerging field. For example, within the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, two new courses are envisioned:
- Design and Operation of Response Logistics Systems (4 credits)
This course will be a capstone course in which students will apply concepts and technology acquired in functionally oriented courses. A set of comprehensive case studies will provide the background for the design exercises. For example, in one case students will be required to build and simulate an emergency response logistics system. In another, students will design a logistics system for treatment of AIDS patients in Africa. Both oral and written reports will be prepared by students.
- Public Health Logistics Laboratory (2 credits)
This course will require students to build and test large scale optimization and simulation models related to specific problems arising from field work undertaken by them and researchers.
We also plan to work with faculty within the College of Human Ecology to determine what courses could be added or cross-listed to strengthen degree concentrations (e.g., Strategic Management & Organizational Design of Health Care Systems, Prof. DeLara in Policy Analysis and Management ).
A weekly seminar series is planned as an integral part of the collaborative research activities in response logistics. Speakers will be from academic institutions, technology companies, and the general professional public health emergency preparedness community including government officials, medical staffs, researchers, and national laboratories. These seminars will provide an important mechanism for faculty and students from different portions of the University to interact.
Joint Engineering/Weill College Internship/ Degree Program
A cornerstone of all our degree programs will be a project or internship experience. Students would spend a portion of a semester working on issues in health system preparedness sponsored by various host organizations from both government and the private sectors. Faculty from the College of Engineering and Weill Cornell Medical College’s Department of Public Health will provide oversight for this activity. This internship will be required of students matriculating in joint masters programs (M.Eng.) through the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering and the MS in Clinical Investigation offered through the Weill Cornell Medical College). Ph.D. students will also participate in an internship program as part of their degree requirement.
