Owl Have You Know

Fixing Healthcare, One Bottleneck at a Time feat. Professor Tolga Tezcan

Owl Have You Know

Published: 26 February 2025 at 10:00 Europe/London

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Episode notes

Have you ever wondered why the wait times in emergency rooms are as long as they are? Or what dictates the cost of healthcare and why those prices seem so high?

Professor Tolga Tezcan has studied healthcare systems around the globe, collaborating with hospitals and researching questions involving access and business operations. He has continued that work at Rice University and teaches courses on operations management, business analytics, and data mining.

Owl Have You Know Host Maya Pomroy ’22 sits down with Professor Tezcan to chat about his course on operations management, the inefficiencies and bottlenecks healthcare systems today face, and his research on innovations happening with healthcare delivery.

Episode Guide:

00:22 Meet Professor Tolga Tezcan

01:36 Understanding Operations Management

05:00 Journey into Healthcare Operations

08:13 Challenges in Healthcare Systems

11:43 Innovative Research and Solutions

21:28 Future of Healthcare and AI

34:24 Teaching and Student Engagement

35:46 Life at Rice University

38:03 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Owl Have You Know is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

How Professor Tolga’s research is using financial incentives to improve healthcare

11:44 [Maya Pomroy]: So tell me about your research. What were the bigger questions? This is exciting because I want to know how it's all going to be fixed and magnificent and, you know, like, this is really—no, I mean, it's because healthcare is just crucial, and it's really integral for all parts of our society—not only the economy but for a healthy society and for everything else.
And in order to be the leader of the free world, you need a healthy society. So yes, I'm very excited to hear about your research.

15:46 [Professor Tolga Tezcan]: So, my research in general—what I try to answer is, okay, we have this best system. How do we coordinate it better? How do we make sure they're connected better? And usually, you do that, at least—I mean, from a business point of view, looking at it as a business—it's with financial incentives. So I try to figure out the best incentives to give so that everybody acts like they're doing the best for the patient.

What are the biggest opportunities for AI in healthcare innovation?

22:12: When you talk about healthcare, there are many different aspects to discuss. And when I talk about AI, it's not the business side that's going to change first; it's going to change the medical delivery side of it, just like any other business. And for us, for example, it makes a lot of things a lot easier to do: writing an email, sometimes checking or editing a document, and so on and so forth. And just like that, I think the first step would be when you're making medical decisions; it will increase the—I shouldn't say accuracy—but it will increase at least the efficiency of doctors making that decision because now you have a second opinion right there at your fingertips. I think that's what's going to change first.

What Professor Tolga Enjoys most about teaching in the Rice community

34:45: I want to believe that my course is an eye-opening experience for everybody, seeing the strategic role operations play. And I love the conversations I have. I mean, multiple times I have conversations with people who come from operations and tell me, "Oh, I've never thought about these issues this way," or people come in with no background and say, "Oh, you know, I've never thought this was something that plays such an important role." It's a challenge because a lot of things in operations change, just like anything else.

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