Seminar

Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Title: Donor-Dependent Scoring Schemes: Shaping the Allocation of  Cadaver Kidneys in a New Era

Speaker:  Mr. Yichuan Ding
                Dept. of Management Science and Engineering
                Stanford University

Date: Jan. 9th, 2012 (Monday)

Time: 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon

Venue: Room 513
            William M.W. Mong Engineering Building
            (Engineering Building Complex Phase 2)
            CUHK

Abstract:

In the U.S., candidates on the cadaver kidney transplant waitlist are ranked on the basis of a scoring scheme that takes into account characteristics of the donor and the candidate. My dissertation undertakes a modeling-based analysis of a general class of scoring systems, including both the donor-dependent and donor-independent ones. I model the transplant waitlist as a stochastic system, and prove that a donor-dependent ranking system usually enables the acceptance of a wider range of kidneys in comparison to a donor-independent ranking system, if all candidates use rational strategies. The analytical results of this study show that a simple modification to the policy proposed policy in 2008 can save more kidneys from being discarded. The simulation result shows that a carefully calibrated donor-dependent policy reduces the number of discarded kidneys by about 7% in comparison with the current allocation policy.

Biography:

Yichuan Ding is a PhD candidate in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University. He researches broadly in operations research methods and their applications in production and service systems. During his doctoral study, he worked with Stefanos Zenios on health care problems, including the design of kidney allocation policy, patient flow management, and graft survival forecasting. He also worked on semidefinite programming and stochastic optimization, with results published on Mathematics of Operations Research, and Operations Research. He consults on health care projects to industries and hospitals, including the Boeing Company, IBM research, the Scientific Registration of Transplant Research, and the San Francisco General Hospital.

************************* ALL ARE WELCOME ************************

Host: Prof. Duan Li

Tel: (852) 3943-8316/8323

Email: dli@se.cuhk.edu.hk

Enquiries: Prof. Nan Chen or Prof. Sean X. Zhou
                 Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management
                 CUHK

Website: http://www.se.cuhk.edu.hk/~seem5201

Email: seem5201@se.cuhk.edu.hk

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