Highlights of the 2011 Mayo Clinic Systems Engineering and Operations Research conference

In this report, we share highlights of the fourth annual Mayo Clinic Systems Engineering and Operations Research conference. The conference provided a forum for system engineers, operations researchers, clinicians, managers and administrators to share experiences, learning and success stories from their work in applying analytical and modeling tools to a range of problems. This report represents a snapshot of the challenges faced in acute health care, the techniques being deployed and the progress being made by engineers and operations researchers in helping to improve the quality and value of services.