Health Care Systems (HSC) Track

According to the World Health Organization, 100 million people are impoverished every year by paying out of pocket for health care. In the United States, about 15 percent of the population is uninsured and tens of thousands of Americans die each year from medical errors, according to the US Institute of Medicine (IOM). Furthermore, the aging population in much of the developed world is consuming an ever-increasing share of health care outlays (see chart).

Health Benefits–Age Profile

While innovative local initiatives have been shown to lower the medical error rates and the incidence of staph infections at specific hospitals, there are large-scale systems issues involving medical training, government regulations, and insurance incentives that are beyond the scope of local control. These health care systems are complex, socio-technical systems, which is to say that health care systems pose exactly the types of problems that interest engineering systems thinkers and researchers.

Much of the work of ESD researchers in the domain of health care involves developing a systems view of trade-offs between risks and benefits of patient treatments; between costs and level of service; and between individual rights and society’s goals. Such work involves not only technology development and implementation but also a deep understanding of the organizational and ethical issues, as well as the human behaviors involved—from the supplier, provider, payor, and patient perspectives.

The Health Care Systems (HCS) track, offered within the existing scope of the Master of Science in Engineering Systems degree, aims to prepare the next generation systems researchers, thinkers, and leaders in the field of health care. Two recent IOM/National Academy of Engineering reports, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century (2001) and Building a Better Delivery System: A New Engineering/Healthcare Partnership (2005) both stressed the need for applying engineering approaches to health care problems. Specifically, these reports call for the development of a new cadre of professionals who can identify and address problems such as health care delivery, financing, safety, and performance using systems approaches.

The HCS track, in conjunction with local hospital and health care facilities, will promote joint research and education for both engineers interested in this topic and health care professionals who want to expand their education. ESD faculty and researchers who work in these areas include Thomas Allen, Joseph Coughlin, Stan Finkelstein, Richard Larson, Nancy Leveson, Chris Magee, Stuart Madnick, Joel Moses, Deborah Nightingale, and Roy Welsch.

A master’s degree in this topic will normally take two years and include a research master’s thesis in the domain of health care systems. The classes to be included will be determined by the student and their advisor. For more information about this program, contact Dr. Stan Finkelstein at MIT.