Dr Murray D Smith joined CaHRU this month in order to contribute expertise in health economics and econometrics to the work of the unit. He brings with him a collection of projects in health economics, including involvement in HEAT (helicobacter bacteria eradication in persons aged 65+ who are regularly using low dose aspirin) which is one of the largest randomised controlled medical trials ever to be conducted in this country.
Previous projects in which Murray was engaged in the capacity of health economics include a trial feasibility study amongst children with Down syndrome who have otitis media with effusion (“glue ear”), and the economic evaluation of a volunteer doula service targeted at pregnant women who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. A current project of Murray’s involves the econometric modelling of teicoplanin trough serum concentration levels, where teicoplanin, a glycopeptide antibiotic used to treat gram-positive bacterial infections, is administered daily as hospital outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy.
Bespoke computer programming provides a major contribution to the success of this and many of Murray’s other projects. Influencing his approach to computational work has been the use of symbolic computer algebra, oriented especially to tackle problems in mathematical statistics. In a long-standing collaboration with Colin Rose, outcomes of their work include the mathStatica© software package that adds on to the Mathematica® programming language, with uses that are illustrated extensively throughout their book entitled Mathematical Statistics with Mathematica (2002; 2013).”