About

James Benneyan is a Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University, where he also serves as the Director of the Healthcare Systems Engineering Institute. His research focuses on healthcare systems engineering, operations research, quality and reliability engineering, statistical quality control, high reliability design, and patient safety. He has contributed to the development and validation of analytic spatial-temporal models to study and mitigate health crises such as the national opioid-heroin co-epidemic. Benneyan's work aims to improve healthcare efficiency, quality, logistics, safety, flow, effectiveness, and access through education, research, and application of systems engineering methods. He leads initiatives within Northeastern University's Healthcare Systems Engineering program, which includes undergraduate and graduate academic programs, experiential co-op education, summer internships, federally-funded healthcare industrial engineering centers, and strategic partnerships with industry. His research has significantly impacted healthcare improvement by leveraging deep industry-university collaborations to advance workforce development and healthcare system resilience.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Computer Science
• Nursing
• Sociology
• Information Retrieval
• Medical emergency
• Medical physics
• Physical therapy
• Mathematics
• Family medicine
• Demography
• Emergency medicine
• Statistics
• Data science
• Environmental health

Selected publications

• Evaluation of a Telephone Outreach Intervention on Colonoscopy Completion Rates for Patients With Rectal Bleeding

  Journal for Healthcare Quality · 2026-01-01

  article

  BACKGROUND: Rectal bleeding is a common concern among primary care patients and a risk marker for colorectal cancer. Yet, primary care patients who present with rectal bleeding frequently do not complete timely colonoscopies. We sought to determine if a phone-based, scheduling intervention for patients presenting with rectal bleeding in primary care would improve the rate of scheduling and completion of ordered colonoscopies. METHODS: We conducted a nonrandomized pre-post intervention study at an urban, academic, hospital-based primary care clinic. We included patients with a colonoscopy order for rectal bleeding who had not scheduled a colonoscopy within 2 weeks of the order date. We created a baseline cohort from August to October 2022 and an intervention cohort from November 2022 to June 2023. The pilot intervention involved up-to-3 outreach phone calls by a primary care-based phone service representative to study participants. RESULTS: Compared to the baseline cohort, patients in the intervention cohort had a significantly higher rate of colonoscopy completion at 365 days ( p = .04). Higher rates in loop closure were seen across demographic cohorts. DISCUSSION: Proactive, primary care-based, outreach phone calls increased rates of completion of colonoscopies ordered for rectal bleeding.

  PublisherDOI

• Patient Perspectives on Delayed Specialty Follow-Up After a Primary Care Visit

  The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine · 2025-01-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Patients are often referred for important diagnostic tests or consultations after a concerning symptom or finding is identified at a primary care visit, but many referrals are delayed or not completed. METHODS: In this qualitative study, we reviewed electronic health record data to identify patients who did not have timely completion of a recommended referral at an academic primary care hospital-based practice and an affiliated community health center. Using semistructured interview guides, we interviewed 15 patients who did not complete a cardiac stress test within 28 days of a primary care visit associated with a diagnosis of chest pain, and 15 patients who did not complete a dermatology referral within 90 days of identification of a concerning skin lesion. RESULTS: Thematic analysis highlighted 3 areas: 1) Patients desired clear communication to inform, equip and empower them, 2) Clinician-patient communication regarding a referral's rationale and value is key, and 3) Referral appointment processes were often challenging and/or delayed. Patients wished to understand why they were being referred, the specific value and reason for the referral, and what to expect. We developed a conceptual model describing how the initial clinician-patient communication may influence referral completion. CONCLUSIONS: Failure to close diagnostic loops may be more likely when a patient is not given sufficient meaningful information, particularly if there is health system "friction" that reduces the patient's ability and ease to obtain a timely diagnostic referral appointment. Clinicians should use accessible language to communicate why a diagnostic referral is useful and important for the patient's health, and include a specific optimal time frame. The initial communication and the ease of the subsequent appointment booking both matter, and may compound or mitigate each other's effect. To reduce diagnostic referral failures and delays. clinicians should advocate for consistent appointment booking processes that systematically inform, equip, and empower patients with clear and meaningful referral information and timely appointments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Development and Usability of Tools to Improve Hospital Resiliency to Capacity Surges

  AHFE international · 2025-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Hospital capacity surges significantly affect nearly all hospitals under both routine and severe conditions ranging from seasonal flu, unpredictable admission spikes, local emergencies, and epidemics such as Covid. The inability to resiliently anticipate and adapt to these events can seriously strain bed, staff, and equipment availability, with significant associated impacts on patient care. We describe ongoing work to iteratively develop and improve usable analytic tools to help hospitals better and more resiliently predict and manage capacity surges. These models accurately project future day-to-day unit-specific room, equipment, and staff demand and shortfalls, self-tuning to any given hospital and surge pattern on a rolling basis, with re-sults displayed in intuitive and actionable manners. A key motivation is that such models, if well-designed for end-users, can help hospitals pre-emptively anticipate, prepare, and adapt appropriately locally, a fundamental concept of resiliency engineering. Participatory design, human factors, and usability analysis thus were used throughout this work to continuously improve the model’s features, interface, accuracy, and utility. Resulting functionality, model logic, and interface improvements are described, including 12%-62% improvements in all usability scores (ease of use, cognitive effort, layout navigation, time to complete, results interpretability) and 61%-95% improvements in accuracy.

  PublisherDOI

• Incidence, Recognition, and Follow-up of Laboratory Evidence of Acute Kidney Injury in Primary Care Practices: Analysis of 93,259 Creatinine Results

  The American Journal of Medicine · 2024-09-04 · 3 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Shewhart-EWMA chart for monitoring binomial data subject to shifts of random amounts

  Computers & Industrial Engineering · 2024-05-24 · 5 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Do patients who read visit notes on the patient portal have a higher rate of “loop closure” on diagnostic tests and referrals in primary care? A retrospective cohort study

  Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association · 2024-01-02 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVES: The 2021 US Cures Act may engage patients to help reduce diagnostic errors/delays. We examined the relationship between patient portal registration with/without note reading and test/referral completion in primary care. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Retrospective cohort study of patients with visits from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2021, and order for (1) colonoscopy, (2) dermatology referral for concerning lesions, or (3) cardiac stress test at 2 academic primary care clinics. We examined differences in timely completion ("loop closure") of tests/referrals for (1) patients who used the portal and read ≥1 note (Portal + Notes); (2) those with a portal account but who did not read notes (Portal Account Only); and (3) those who did not register for the portal (No Portal). We estimated the predictive probability of loop closure in each group after adjusting for socio-demographic and clinical factors using multivariable logistic regression. RESULTS: Among 12 849 tests/referrals, loop closure was more common among Portal+Note-readers compared to their counterparts for all tests/referrals (54.2% No Portal, 57.4% Portal Account Only, 61.6% Portal+Notes, P < .001). In adjusted analysis, compared to the No Portal group, the odds of loop closure were significantly higher for Portal Account Only (OR 1.2; 95% CI, 1.1-1.4), and Portal+Notes (OR 1.4; 95% CI, 1.3-1.6) groups. Beyond portal registration, note reading was independently associated with loop closure (P = .002). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Compared to no portal registration, the odds of loop closure were 20% higher in tests/referrals for patients with a portal account, and 40% higher in tests/referrals for note readers, after controlling for sociodemographic and clinical factors. However, important safety gaps from unclosed loops remain, requiring additional engagement strategies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Incidence, Recognition, and Follow-Up of Laboratory Evidence of Acute Kidney Injury in Primary Care Practices: Analysis of 93,259 Creatinine Results

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Low Rate of Completion of Recommended Tests and Referrals in an Academic Primary Care Practice with Resident Trainees

  The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety · 2023-10-24 · 4 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Alternate Safety Methods to Root Cause Analysis for Learning from Healthcare Adverse Events

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Completion Rates and Timeliness of Diagnostic Colonoscopies for Rectal Bleeding in Primary Care

  Journal of General Internal Medicine · 2023-11-08 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Center for Healthcare Organization Transformation

  NSF · $252k · 2010–2017

• EAGER: Development and Validation of Analytic Spatial-Temporal Models to Help Study and Mitigate the National Opioid-Heroin Co-Epidemic

  NSF · $257k · 2017–2020

• Drug Safety Risk-Benefit Models

  NSF · $362k · 2009–2012

• Monitoring, Control, and Adjustment of Non-Homogeneous Healthcare and Patient Data

  NSF · $325k · 2003–2007

Frequent coauthors

• David W. Bates

  Brigham and Women's Hospital

  26 shared

• Gordon D. Schiff

  Harvard University

  25 shared

• Jordan Peck

  Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

  24 shared

• Deborah Nightingale

  22 shared

• Iulian Ilieş

  Northeastern University

  21 shared

• Stephan A. Gaehde

  VA Boston Healthcare System

  19 shared

• Russell S. Phillips

  16 shared

• Arthur W. Baker

  Duke University

  15 shared

Labs

• Healthcare Systems Engineering InstitutePI

Awards & honors

• Impact Award (2023), College of Engineering, Northeastern Un…
• Outstanding Research Award (2011), College of Engineering, N…
• Outstanding Teaching Award (2008), College of Engineering, N…
• Teaching Excellence Award (2003), Alpha Pi Mu Honor Society
• President’s Aspiration Service Award (2001), Northeastern Un…