Modelling healthcare policy decisions for planning and impact analysis

Michael Carter is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto and Director of the Centre for Research in Healthcare Engineering. He received his doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Waterloo in 1980. Since 1989, his research focus has been in the area of health care resource modeling with a variety of projects in hospitals, home care, rehab, long term care, medical labs and mental health institutions. He has supervised more than 160 engineering students in over 100 projects with healthcare institutions. He currently has 18 students (7 doctoral, 5 masters and 6 undergrad) working in the area. He was the winner of the Annual Practice Prize from the Canadian Operational Research Society (CORS) four times (1988, 1992, 1996 and 2009). In 2000, he received the CORS Award of Merit for lifetime contributions to Canadian Operational Research. He also received an Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Toronto Student Administrative Council. He is on the editorial board for the Journal of Scheduling and the journal Health Care Management Science. Professor Carter is co-editor of an issue of Interfaces on Healthcare Applications. He is a member of the Nursing Effectiveness, Utilization and Outcomes Research Unit and a mentor in the Health Care, Technology and Place Program at the University of Toronto. He was a lecturer with the Project H.O.P.E. international program in Healthcare Quality in Central and Eastern Europe in 2002 (Estonia & Latvia) and 2003 (Hungary & the Czech Republic). He is on the Advisory Board for the Regenstreif Centre for Healthcare Engineering at Purdue University. He is an Adjunct Scientist with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto (www.ices.on.ca).