Sharon Johnson

Professor

Education:

BS University of Michigan, 1983

MS Cornell University 1986

PhD Cornell University 1989

I enjoy teaching at WPI because students bring a lot of energy and enthusiasm to their learning, and I am often inspired by their optimism. My teaching also reflects topics that motivate me: detailed process design in our Industrial Engineering program, improving healthcare delivery as part of the Health Systems Innovation certificate, and exploring the implications of operational excellence in our MBA program. My research explores the impact of lean improvement methods in healthcare settings, as well as applying systems modeling approaches to design more effective healthcare delivery processes. Recent projects include evaluating lean as an implementation strategy for a suicide safety planning intervention and developing a model to examine the effects of lean training in an organization. I am also interested in the opportunities that information technologies create by providing new types of data for operational decision making and improving workflows and care delivery. Recent projects have explored the effects of secure messaging on workflows and examined the implementation of electronic health record systems, including personal health records. I am a founding member of the Healthcare Delivery Institute (HDI), and currently serve on the Faculty Steering Committee. My research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the New England Veterans Engineering Resource Center.

sharon@wpi.edu

Office Location

Washburn Shops 223

Contact

Phone:

+1 (508) 8315183

Research Lab

Healthcare Delivery Institute (HDI)

Research Interests

Research Interests:

Improving health care delivery processes

Effects of electronic health record (EHR) systems on care delivery

Capacity and demand modeling in healthcare systems

Lean process design

Process analysis and modeling

Scholarly Work

Tulu, B., Trapp, A. C., Strong, D. M., Johnson, S. A., Hoque, M., Trudel, J., & Garber, L. (2016). An analysis of patient portal utilization: what can we learn about online patient behavior by examining portal click data?. Health Systems, 5(1), 66-79.

Ozkaynak, M., S. A. Johnson, B. Tulu, J. L. Donvan, A. O. Kanaan, Rose, A., “Using a Work Systems Framework to Explore the Effect of Complex Patients on Care Delivery Tasks in Anticoagulation Clinics”, International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 28(5), 494-509, 2015.

Pelletier, L., S. A. Johnson, E. Westrick, A. Krinsky, E. Fontaine, R. Klugman, “A Composite Model for Profiling Physicians across Domains of Care”, Journal of Healthcare Management, 59(3), May/June 2014.

Strong, D.M., O. Volkoff, S.A. Johnson, L. Pelletier, B. Tulu, I. Bar-On, L. Garber, J. Truedel, “A Theory of Clinic-EHR Affordance Actualization”, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 15(2), 53-85, 2014.

Pelletier, L., S. A. Johnson, E. Westrick, J. McBride, E. Fontaine, “Examining the Relationship Between Medical Home and Patient Satisfaction Outcomes”, Journal of the Society of Healthcare Improvement Professionals, Vol. 2 (March), 2013.

Ozkaynak, M., P. F. Brennan, D. A. Hanuer, S. A. Johnson, J. Aarts, K. Zheng, S. N. Haque, “Patient-Centered Care Requires a Patient-Oriented Workflow Model”, Journal of the American Medical Association, 20, e14-e16, 2013. Published Online First: 28 March 2013. PMID: 23538724.