Jameson Thesis Competition Finalist – Center for Health Decision Science

CHDS’s Jacob Jameson, fourth-year student in the Decision Science track of the Harvard PhD Program in Health Policy, was a finalist in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition for his thesis, “The Impact of Batching Advanced Imaging Tests in Emergency Departments.” Hosted by Harvard Griffin GSAS, the competition challenged PhD students to present their research in three minutes to a non-specialist audience. The event was designed to strengthen students’ ability to communicate clearly and effectively.

Jameson’s three-minute presentation posed the question: should US emergency department physicians order advanced imaging tests one at a time or through batch ordering? In crowded emergency departments, delayed and backlogged care can put patients at risk, and while tests like CT scans are necessary, they can delay care for both the patient receiving the test and others waiting in the queue. Because patients in emergency departments are assigned to physicians at random rather than by choice, different patients may receive care from doctors with very different ordering patterns — some who batch imaging tests (“batchers”) and others who order them one at a time (“sequencers”). This natural variation creates a statistical opportunity: Jameson used physician ordering patterns to estimate the causal effect of discretionary batching on patient outcomes. His findings suggested that reducing discretionary batching by just 50% in a mid-sized US emergency department would free up roughly 850 bed hours of capacity per year. As Jameson puts it, “Batching, when done because of a physician’s preference and not clinical necessity, does not actually speed things up — it makes things slower, which is less safe for the patient being over-tested, but also for the patients still waiting to be seen.”

Jameson’s research focuses on applied methods in causal inference, decision modeling, and reinforcement learning to support better decision-making in health and public policy. His applications include emergency department operations, suicide prevention, and precision medicine. Jameson will be entering the academic job market for the 2026-2027 cycle.

Learn more: Watch Jameson’s 3MT® presentation, The Impact of Batching Advanced Imaging Tests in Emergency Departments
Learn more: Read about Jacob Jameson