Helping to Provide Healthcare for the Homeless in Boston During COVID-19
Two weeks ago we published an article on how Routable AI’s technology could be used during the current coronavirus outbreak. A huge thanks to all of you that shared and responded to the article! Our team wanted to help during this global crisis, and in that article we brainstormed ways to do so. We are excited to announce that we got an unexpected request and have launched a product that is currently helping the medical system in Boston dealing with the crisis.
Our goal in sharing the below is to find other hospitals, homeless shelters, or other places dealing with the pandemic (e.g conference centers and prisons) that are managing patients in this tough time.
The problem
Boston is facing an incredible challenge as the number of COVID-19 cases are ramping up at an alarming rate. The medical system is under extreme pressure, and needs to provide healthcare to an increasingly large number of patients with increasingly more limited resources.
The Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP) is helping out the homeless during this crisis, and their program is more relevant than ever. Homeless people are among the most vulnerable to infection, and are unable to maintain social distancing and good hygiene.
But BHCHP is facing a huge challenge: how to manage the enormous inflow of potential COVID-19 patients? They are managing a large number of facilities, and each facility has a limited number of beds available with varying amenities.
Some of these patients might have known exposure to a COVID-19 carrier and have all the symptoms of COVID-19, while others are asymptomatic or have had no known exposure. Others yet might have already tested positive. These different patients fall in very different risk groups and it would be very unwise to have them all share the same ward.
How can we optimally distribute patients over these facilities and allocate beds so that we maximize the care that can be provided?
Some of these patients might furthermore have special needs that can only be accommodated in a limited number of beds at specific facilities. Whenever a new patient is registered, there has to be clarity on which facility and bed this patient needs to go to. How can we optimally distribute patients over these facilities and allocate beds so that we maximize the care that can be provided?
The solution
About two weeks ago, we got notified of a request sent to the MIT network from Rebecca Mishuris, who works as Associate Chief Medical Information Officer at Boston Medical Center (BMC). BMC has had a close partnership with Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program for many years. Mishuris expressed the need for a software system that could help BHCHP manage its facilities and beds.
At its core, this is an optimization problem, and although different than our usual context, this is something that we are specialized in at Routable AI. Our CTO Alex Wallar and our engineering team determined that this was an important problem to solve. They took initiative and decided to drop their usual work for a few days to help out.
At its core, this is an optimization problem, and although different than our usual context, this is something that we are specialized in at Routable AI.
The team managed to build a fully functional bed management system (a huge shoutout to Alex Wallar, Alex Wurts, Daniel Zuo, advisor James Cox and the rest of the team for making this happen). Within 48 hours they had a first prototype finished ready for review, and within 4 days the system was ready for testing in the field. This past week, the system has been deployed and is actively being used by the amazing BHCHP doctors and nurses working on the front line.
The system
Our system keeps track of every bed in each facility used for the health care for the homeless program. Each bed has a set of labels, describing characteristics such as whether this is a bed for known exposed patients and whether it has access to a private bathroom.
But the real magic happens when you press the allocate beds button. Leveraging on our in-house optimization tools, the system automatically decides which patients to send to which facility, and which particular bed to allocate the patient to. This optimization takes into account all the characteristics of the patient and the available beds. We are even able to extend this system with our vehicle routing technology to manage a fleet of ambulances. By connecting these two systems, we can automatically dispatch ambulances to transport patients to the facility they are assigned to.
And the most important thing is that currently the system is actively being implemented:
I want to take a moment to say THANK YOU, James, Alex and the entire Routable AI team. I put out the call for help on Tuesday March 24 and on Friday March 27, BHCHP is testing an entirely new system to track available beds for people experiencing homelessness in Boston and in need of respite during the COVID-19 pandemic.
— Rebecca Mishuris, Associate Chief Medical Information Officer at Boston Medical Center (BMC)
Final words
We are honored that we have been able to contribute in a meaningful way during these very challenging times. I hope that it will make the job of our heroes at the front line just a little bit less stressful by automating this small part of their hugely important daily work. If you know any other organizations that could benefit from the tool that we made, please feel free to reach out to us. In the meanwhile we will continue to support BHCHP and the great work that they are doing. If you want to help out as well, they are taking donations here!
