Speaker: Burhaneddin Sandıkçı

Title: A simple incentive mechanism to alleviate the burden of organ wastage in transplantation

Date/Time: September 18, 2019  /  13.40-14.30

Place: FENS G015

Abstract: Despite efforts to increase the supply of donated organs for transplantation, organ shortage keeps increasing as demand outpaces supply. On the flip side, about 15% of organs recovered for transplantation in the U.S. are discarded. We study incentive mechanisms to increase the utilization of available organs to alleviate the burden of shortages, through a queueing-theoretic framework. We theoretically investigate socially efficient and equilibrium utilizations of donor organs. In this talk, we argue that a simple incentive mechanism can help increase the utilization of organs while also improving overall social welfare. We also present detailed simulation results calibrated with real life transplant data, quantifying the magnitude of impact of this incentive mechanism for the U.S. kidney transplant system.

BIO: Burhaneddin Sandıkçı received his PhD in industrial engineering in 2008 from the University of Pittsburgh. Upon graduation, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business as an Assistant Professor of Operations Management. He was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor of Operations Management at the same school in 2013. His research interests span decision-making problems under uncertainty with particular focus on problems in medical decision-making and healthcare operations. He combines his expertise in data analytics and operations research in solving practically relevant complex problems in health care. He emphasizes rigorous and data-based research, and uses state of the art large databases to build detailed computer simulations to complement his theoretical models. His research has been published in leading academic journals such as Operations Research, Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Mathematical Programming, SIAM Journal on Optimization, Hepatology, and American Journal of Transplantation.

Contact: Emre Özlü