Date of Graduation

12-2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Industrial Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Zhang, Shengfan

Committee Member/Reader

Rainwater, Chase E.

Abstract

This research addresses the issue of unnecessary treatment and late discharge for mental health inpatients. In this thesis, a dynamic decision model is proposed to determine the optimal timing to discharge a patient from hospital that considers both the impacts of over-treatment and not enough treatment on patients recovery. We measure the reward of making the discharge decisions in terms of hospitalization cost and readmission cost. The objective is to minimize the total expected cost for patients and provides hospital care providers with theoretical methods to assist them to make a better decision about discharge planning and management.

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