数学中国www, madio,net yudges'Commentary 169 Judges Commentary: The Outstanding Healthcare Papers Sarah Root Dept of Industrial Engineering University of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR Rodney sturdivant Frank Wattenberg Dept of Mathematical Sciences U.S. Military Academy West Point, NY Introduction The Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM) is a vehicle for students in teams to develop a model to address a problem posed to them, over a four-day weekend. The contest challenges not only students' creativity and modeling prowess, but also their ability to work together in a time-constrained envi- ronment. Many of these teams' modeling effort and analysis is truly impres- sive. In early April, eight judges gathered to read, compare, and contrast the submissions to the contest. Like many of the teams, the judges were an in- terdisciplinary group with backgrounds in mathematics, statistics, healthcare administration, industrial engineering, and operations research The Problem Teams faced the problem of developing a model to compare many of the world,'s healthcare systems. This is a timely and relevant issue, particularly in the U.S. with the upcoming presidential election. Although per capita the U.S. spends the most on healthcare, several countries have vastly better health outcomes. In addition, many point to inequities in the U.S. system, resulting The UMAP Jourmal29(2)(2008)169-174. @Copyright 2007by COMAP, Inc. All reserv ermission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or dassroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commerdial advantage and that copies bear this notre. Abstracting with credit is permitted, but copyrigh for components nf this work owned by others than ( mnst he honor To copy otherwise数学中国 www.madio.net