数学中国w, madio,net 170 The UMAP Journal 29.2(2008) from a substantial percentage of the population that is either uninsured or underinsured, as evidence that the US system could be improved The problem required teams to look at issues faced by countries around the world, including developing a model to help compare the countries' healthcare systems across these issues. The problem tasks fell into four main categories Metric ldentification and Selection. The teams had to identify metrics for efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare systems and then specify where such data could be obtained. Teams needed to incorporate at least three metrics into their models and justify the importance of the metrics selected Model Development. After identifying the metrics, teams had to develop- ing a methodology or model to use these data to compare healthcaresystems Analysis and Comparison of Healthcare Systems. Teamsweretoexercise their model to perform at least two comparisons: ane to compare the U.s to a country considered to have a good healthcare system, and a second to compare the U.S. to a country with a poor healthcare system. Recommendations to Restructure a Healthcare System. After perform- ing the comparisons, teams were to select a country and use their model to suggest changes to restructure its healthcare system. They were either to adapt their existing model or to construct new models to suggest to whatde- gree various changes would improve the system, as measured by the metrics that they had selected Overall, the judges were impressed both by the strength of many of the submissions and by the variety of approaches used Judging Criteria To structure the judges thinking and to ensure consistency across judges we developed a rubric to evaluate submissions. Its framework encompassed Executive Summary: Itwas important that a team succinctly and clearlyex- plain the highlights of their submission. The executive summary needed to include the metrics selected, modeling approach(es)used, results from com- parisons, and recommendations to restructure a healthcare system. Most teams did this. What distinguished the Outstanding papers was the clar- ity with which the authors connected these topics and conveyed substantial information in the executive summary Scientific Knowledge and Application: This task required that teams ei. ther have or develop some knowledge about healthcare systems and mech anisms by which effectiveness can be measured. The majority of teams did this relatively well, selecting relevant metrics to use in their analyses. The teams that excelled in this area went beyon traditionally available metrics For example, some teams combined readily-available metrics into new ones数学中国 www.madio.net