Health and Human Safety

Health and human safety involve many important decisions that affect people’s lives, including the management of expensive resources in health systems, complex clinical treatment decisions, and the design of safe environments for people to live and work. Harnessing data from electronic health records and new technologies such as wearable sensors make it possible to improve decision making on many levels.

This area includes:

Healthcare Delivery: Optimizing operational processes for health systems to reduce costs for providers and improve patient access to high-quality care­­.

Human Performance and Safety: Designing safer and more efficient workplaces to increase the safety, productivity, and satisfaction of workers.

Medical Decision Making: Modeling clinical and physiological processes for shared decision making by healthcare providers and patients to improve patient care, safety, and treatment­­ outcomes.

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University of Michigan researchers have produced a new prediction model using longitudinal information and deep learning to better predict the return to work time for people with occupational injuries.

Preventing prescription dispensing errors using machine intelligence

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In the United States over four billion prescriptions are dispensed every year. Of those four billion around 2.4 million are incorrectly dispensed, which can be a fatal error. A team of researchers from the University of Michigan looks to machine intelligence to help humans reduce their dispensing errors.

Center for Ergonomics receives $1.1 million grant to study information automation vulnerabilities on modern flight decks

November 11, 2021

The Federal Aviation Administration has awarded Nadine Sarter and her Human-Automation Interaction and Cognition (THInC) Lab in the UM Center for Ergonomics a three-year, grant to study information management on the flight deck of highly automated aircraft.

Brian Denton appointed Stephen M. Pollock Collegiate Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering

August 23, 2021

Brian Denton has been appointed the Stephen M. Pollock Collegiate Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering, named in honor of Stephen M. Pollock, a professor emeritus and former chair of U-M IOE.

Kati Moug receives 2021 Generation Google Scholarship

July 29, 2021

U-M IOE PhD student, Kati Moug, has received a 2021 Generation Google Scholarship in recognition of academic performance, leadership, and a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The science behind campus bus changes during COVID-19

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Engineers used smoke machines, physics-based modeling and route optimization algorithms to quantify risk.

Amy Cohn receives MDHHS funding to improve hospital staffing

January 24, 2020

U-M IOE professor, Amy Cohn, has received funding from MDHHS to improve staffing and safety issues within Michigan’s state hospital system using simulation tools and optimization techniques.

Seth Guikema and Thomas Chen win U.S. Public Health Service Engineering literary award

April 17, 2019

U-M IOE's Seth Guikema and Thomas Chen have won the 2019 Robert C Williams Engineering Literary Award from the U.S. Public Health Service.

Mark Van Oyen elected President of the INFORMS Health Applications Society

January 22, 2019

U-M IOE Professor Mark Van Oyen has been elected 2019 Vice President and 2020 President of the INFORMS Health Applications Society.

Using decision thresholds to improve medical diagnosis

October 4, 2018

U-M IOE PhD student, Gian-Gabriel Garcia receives student prize from the Society of Medical Decision Making.