Background: Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) is being widely adopted in high TB burden countries. Analysis is needed to guide the placement of devices within health systems to optimize tuberculosis (TB) case detection. Methods: We used epidemiologic and operational data from Uganda (139 sites serving...

In services where teams come together for short collaborations, managers are often advised to strive for high team familiarity so as to improve coordination and, consequently, performance. However, inducing high team familiarity, by keeping team membership intact, can limit workers'...

Early diagnosis of HIV among infants born to HIV infected mothers is critical because roughly 50% of untreated infected infants die before the age of two years. Yet most countries in sub-Saharan Africa experience significant delays in diagnosis due to operational inefficiencies in early infant...

This paper studies a model of community-based healthcare delivery for a chronic disease. In this setting, patients periodically visit the healthcare delivery system, which influences their disease progression and consequently their health outcomes. We investigate how the provider can maximize...

Introduction: Previous operational research studies have demonstrated the feasibility of large-scale public sector ART programs in resource-limited settings. However, organizational and structural determinants of quality of care have not been studied. Methods: Using data on 13 urban HIV...

We present a model of dynamic resource allocation in a setting where continuity of service is important and future resource availability is uncertain. The paper is inspired by the challenges faced by HIV clinics in resource-limited settings in the allocation of scarce HIV treatment among a large...

In recent years, growth in the demand for emergency medical services along with decline in the number of hospitals with emergency departments (EDs) has raised concerns about the ability of the EDs to provide adequate service. Many EDs frequently report periods of overcrowding during which they...

In many emerging economies, callers may abandon ambulance requests due to a combination of operational (small fleet size), infrastructural (long travel times) and behavioral factors (low trust in the ambulance system). As a result, ambulance capacity, which is already scarce, is wasted in...

Physicians regularly face the challenge of differential diagnosis, i.e., differentiating between diseases with similar symptoms. As a first step, a physician forms an initial belief for each possible disease. In the second step, the physician conducts more tests and examinations over multiple...

States across the country are taking steps towards providing digital identities to beneficiaries of their Public Distribution System. In doing so, use of Aadhaar based biometrics seems to be the preferred choice of method. However, this method has been widely criticized for several reasons such...