Unique UC Partnership Aims to Improve Emergency Care

In a unique combination of academic disciplines at UC, the Departments of Emergency Medicine (DEM) in the College of Medicine and Operations, Business Analytics and Information Systems (OBAIS) in the Carl H. Lindner College of Business have partnered to improve emergency care operations.

To improve health care delivery, the two departments created a joint assistantship to fund an OBAIS doctoral student for a yearlong research project to design, implement and study new approaches in high quality emergency medicine.

Lauren Laker, a second-year OBAIS PhD student in the Lindner College of Business, is the first recipient of the DEM-OBAIS doctoral assistantship. Laker, whose assistantship begins at the start of UC’s new fall 2012 semester conversion, will conduct and publish a research project and learn about the culture, decision-making, operations and unique aspects of research in healthcare.

Laker is eager to pursue her passion in healthcare operations research.

“I firmly believe that UC and University Hospital are leading the industry and paving a path where academia and practice bring their skills and knowledge to the same table, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to have been chosen to be a part of that,” Laker says.

Dr. Michael Ward, assistant professor of emergency medicine, will oversee Laker’s progress. Ward says her work to find innovative operational approaches is greatly needed.

“Healthcare is in desperate need of new perspectives to provide safe, timely and high quality care,” Ward says. “This assistantship is precisely the way to develop the next generation of innovative thinkers in the operations of healthcare.”

Craig Froehle, associate professor of OBAIS and PhD program coordinator, says the college hopes to “develop a new generation of cross-disciplinary researchers who are devoted to improving healthcare delivery by bringing new methods to bear on the industry’s most complex operational problems.”