A genetic algorithm-based strategic planning framework for optimising accessibility and costs of general practices in Northland, New Zealand.

Shortage of general practitioners (GP) is a challenge worldwide, not only in Europe, but also in countries like New Zealand. Providing primary care in rural areas is especially challenging. In order to support decision makers, it is necessary to first assess the current GP coverage and then to determine different scenarios and plans for the future.

Considerations for using data envelopment analysis for the assessment of radiotherapy treatment plan quality.

Purpose The operations research method of data envelopment analysis (DEA) shows promise for assessing radiotherapy treatment plan quality. The purpose of this paper is to consider the technical requirements for using DEA for plan assessment. Design/methodology/approach In total, 41 prostate treatment plans were retrospectively analysed using the DEA method.

Quality assessment for VMAT prostate radiotherapy planning based on data envelopment analysis.

The majority of commercial radiotherapy treatment planning systems requires planners to iteratively adjust the plan parameters in order to find a satisfactory plan. This iterative trial-and-error nature of radiotherapy treatment planning results in an inefficient planning process and in order to reduce such inefficiency, plans can be accepted without achieving the best attainable quality. We propose a quality assessment method based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) to address this inefficiency.