Optimal Timing of Insulin Initiation Using a Mathematical Model

Abstract

Diabetes is a chronic disease that is rapidly spreading worldwide. In the treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes, the most common type of the disease, doctors have many intervention methods. Therefore, taking the right action at the most appropriate time among these many types of interventions will make a great contribution to the patient’s health as well as the costs of treatment. In this study, we developed a finite-horizon Markov decision process (MDP) model in which the state of the process will cover the patient’s metabolic health status and history of drug used to solve this problem. The model is operated by using existing data in the literature and the results are discussed.