Concepts and names

This PLOSOne article deserves a careful look.

PLOS Medicine

I studied operations research, as a discipline, in JHU Prof Charles Flagle’s NIMH T32 program’s regular workgroup series and seminars on Operations Research in Mental Health, with a reach back to ‘efficiency studies’ of 100+ years ago (leading to assembly line cost savings) and learning WE Deming’s work to re-build the Japanese economy after WWII. Flagle stressed context, as in this VA oriented contribution.

We used Deming’s quality control concepts to construct our Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) field survey’s multi-stage sequenced sampling design (MSSS) in 1980, published in 1985:

Anthony et al., Archives of General Psychiatry, 1985

I am hopeful that ‘Implementation Science’ will emerge with its own theory, concepts, principles, and approaches, and with more than a ‘purple passion,’ as fields sometimes emerge in the public health sciences.

Deming

Flagle:

Charles D. Flagle, (2002) Some Origins of Operations Research in the Health Services. Operations Research 50(1):52-60.

OR origins