Faculty Scholars

Faculty Scholar Magda Gabriela Sava, Ph.D. at Clemson University, Clemson South Carolina

M. Gabriela Sava, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Department of Management
Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business

Contact: msava@clemson.edu  

Who is Dr. Sava?

M. Gabriela Sava is an assistant professor in the Department of Management in the Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business since 2016. Sava completed her Ph.D. in Business Analytics and Operations at The Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh and her undergraduate studies at Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania.

Her research interests are all aspects of healthcare analytics, particularly the application of decision models to problems associated with preventive healthcare services. As healthcare providers shift their focus from treatment to prevention, the preventive healthcare services area offers a variety of opportunities for study from an analytical perspective. A better understanding of the field could help in the design of improved preventive healthcare services and policies that would be simultaneously patient-centered, personalized, and cost efficient.

Methodologically, Gabriela’s research focuses on the use of stability analysis of multi-criteria decision models, and on the use of data mining methods, for improving resource allocation in preventive healthcare services. Gabriela is actively collaborating with researchers from University of Rochester Medical Center, PrimaHealth–Upstate, Bucknell University, University of Tennessee, University of Maryland, University of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center(UPMC) and Clemson University.

For more information, see her Department Profile.

How Dr. Sava’s research is transforming health care

Dr. Sava is working to transform the way the patient express and understand their preferences regarding preventive screening measures, such as colorectal cancer screening or supplemental breast cancer screening, and to further engage into a shared medical decision making process with their healthcare providers. As such, she developed a multi-dimensional stability analysis of preferences to assess the impact of additional medical information over the long term patients preferences. She also developed a joint patient-physician model where the patients’ preferences and healthcare provider expertise are combined mathematically to assess the appropriate course of action. She is also working on expanding the role of emergency medicine and urgent care by designing predictive screening models for chronic diseases such as diabetes and referral mechanisms that improve the patients’ care paths. For more information about her work, visit her her Google Scholar page here.

News and media related to Dr. Sava’s research

Health Research Expertise Keywords

Healthcare analytics, healthcare operations management, medical decision-making, multi-criteria decision analysis