Abstract
Hospital emergency departments (HED) across the US are overcrowded. The number of HEDs is decreasing, while patient volume is rising. Overcrowding not only results in delayed treatment, long patient waiting time and stay, overburdened working staff, patient elopement and low throughput, it also leads to many other problems, such as medical errors due to overloading, high turnover, diverting of ambulances, etc. In addition, overcrowding also has a significant financial implication. Therefore, analyzing the patient flow in HED to minimize length of stay, improve efficiency and reduce crowding is necessary and important.
This talk is devoted to introducing an analytical framework for HED modeling and analysis to improve its efficiency and reduce crowding. In parallel to production systems, we intend to develop an improvability theory for HED operations. Specifically, a system-theoretic approach is proposed to evaluate HED performance in terms of patient outcomes, identify system bottlenecks and redistributing limited resources optimally, and determine optimal workforce configuration and resource allocation to achieve desired performance.
In addition, this talk will briefly introduce other recent research projects in health care systems, such as acute care delivery, pharmacy and radiology departments, etc.

Biography
Dr. Jingshan Li will be an Associate Professor with tenure in Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in University of Wisconsin at Madison (starting from July 1st, 2010). He has been an Assistant Professor with Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY since 2006. He was a Staff Researcher in Manufacturing Systems Research Lab, General Motors Research & Development Center, Warren, MI from 2000 to 2006. He received BS from Dept. of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and MS from Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, and PhD in Electrical Engineering – Systems, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI in 1989, 1992 and 2000, respectively.
Dr. Li is the co-author (with Prof. S.M. Meerkov) of the textbook Production Systems Engineering (Springer, 2009), and he co-edited (with Prof. P.T. Kabamba) the book Advances in Systems Theory: Control, Communication Networks, Production Systems and Rational Behavior (WingSpan Press, 2009). Up-to-date, he has published 38 refereed journal articles, 4 book chapters and 46 conference proceedings. He was the Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering and Mathematical Problems in Engineering. He received NSF CAREER Award (2010-2015), the 2009 IIE Transactions Best Application Paper Award – Design and Manufacturing, 2005 IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering Best Paper Award, 2006 IEEE Early Industry/Government Career Award in Robotics and Automation, and he was also in the Finalists of Best Paper Award of 2009 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering and Best Automation Paper Award of 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. His primary research interests are in design, analysis and control of production and health care systems. His research has been supported by NSF, General Motors, Central Baptist Hospital, University of Kentucky Hospital, DOE, UKRF and SME.