Improves health systems algorithm

León.- Researchers at the Tecnológico de Monterrey León campus developed an algorithm that seeks to guide health authorities in making decisions on how to allocate economic, human, and material resources to increase the population's access to health services.

The development was driven by Michael Jinwoo Park , a graduate of Industrial and Systems Engineering from the León campus , who received the 50th Rómulo Garza Award for professional research.

As part of this same academic effort, professor and researcher Rodolfo Mendoza Gómez , who supported the development of the algorithm, will receive the 2025 Research Award from the Autonomous University of Nuevo León (UANL) on September 11.

In an interview with AM , Rodolfo Mendoza Gómez said that health sector decisions are typically made with a political focus and commented that the main problem in implementing this algorithm is the lack of information and data.

There has been a lack of coordination in the healthcare system and many changes in recent years, and databases are not updated or the information is incomplete. In industrial engineering, there is an area of ​​mathematics called operations research, in which a real-life problem is represented mathematically for the purpose of making data-driven decisions.

"What I do is look for models that can be applied in the Mexican context, and I've focused on Mexico's public health sector. These are models that help inform decision-making regarding how to allocate resources to maximize benefits for the population," he explained.

He emphasized that the allocation and distribution of the population according to the number of health centers and primary care units is done without considering data, so the goal is to ensure that there are no understaffed health units and no overcrowded ones, and to distribute them equitably.

They are also seeking to identify where to open or increase capacity, that is, where to allocate more doctors and offices.

The work is focused on operational regionalization, which refers to how the Ministry of Health assigns the population to medical units. Typically, people go to a clinic where their chronic illnesses are monitored and are recommended to go to a specific unit where they will be treated," he noted.

Mendoza Gómez added that data from the State of Mexico , consulted by INEGI and the General Directorate of Health Information of the Federal Government , were also used for this algorithm; however, the algorithm can be implemented in any state.

"I come from a family of doctors. My mother is a doctor, my father is a primary health care technician. They both worked in health centers in Mexico City . They moved to a town where there are Mazahua communities.

"They came to rural health centers, and sometimes they took me there, and I saw the limitations in caring for people. I identified their needs and empathized with the problems. That's when I became inspired to learn how to contribute from my field to improve these situations," he shared.

Finally, he said that the model is being presented to Guanajuato government authorities , with the goal of evaluating its viability and implementation at the state level.

He is an industrial engineer, a graduate of the National Polytechnic Institute . He holds a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the Monterrey Institute of Technology .

From 2020 to 2022 he completed a postdoctoral stay at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León .

His research focuses on the development of optimization models for decision-making regarding resource allocation in Mexico's public health sector , and he has published several scientific articles related to this area of ​​research.

JJJC

Written in Health on 4/9/2025 · 9:04 PM

Graduate in Communications Sciences. Reporter with 10 years of experience. She primarily covers health and education; she also has experience in other topics such as politics, social activism, the LGBTI community, animal rights organizations, culture, and urban reporting. She has been a reporter for AM and Al Día since May 2017.