A COVID spike is expected after the holidays. What you can do right now to prepare.
With the emergence of the omicron variant, local hospital leaders are preparing for a spike in COVID-19 cases following upcoming holiday gatherings.
The INFORMS Analytics+ Conference showcased how companies are turning advanced analytics and AI into measurable operational results
In most emergency departments, beds are a hot commodity. But some patients don’t actually need a bed for their treatment – and accurately identifying those people is a low-lift but effective way to increase efficiency without sacrificing care quality, finds a study recently published in the journal Management Science.
The researchers developed a simple decision tree, informed by mathematical and machine learning models, to help staff decide whether a patient truly needs a bed or can be routed to a “vertical processing pathway” – that is, an area where they can be treated sitting up. Many hospitals already have such an area but don’t necessarily have a systematic way to decide which patients are treated there.
American teenagers start their school day too early.
Medical experts have been clear for years: sleep cycle changes during puberty make it hard for teenagers to learn in the early morning. Later school start times have been linked to better sleep, improved mental health, stronger academic performance and even safer driving.
Most school district leaders know about this problem and care about fixing it. But changing the schedule can feel operationally impossible.
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With the emergence of the omicron variant, local hospital leaders are preparing for a spike in COVID-19 cases following upcoming holiday gatherings.
Flights are booked. Bags are packed. To cancel Christmas travel plans seems unfathomable at this point. But for many, so does the speed at which the omicron variant is spreading. The highly transmissible Covid-19 variant — which was first detected in late November but has since been detected in nearly 90 countries — is causing travel uncertainty around the globe.
As the omicron variant surges and COVID-19 cases spike, the Joe Biden administration is launching a number of initiatives in response: Military medical workers will prepare to help out civilian hospitals, new testing and vaccination sites will open, and the federal government will distribute 500 million at-home COVID tests for free.
A group of scientists funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is projecting the omicron variant may break pandemic records for coronavirus hospitalizations across North Carolina.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that over 77 percent of eligible people have received one COVID-19 vaccine dose, 65 percent are fully vaccinated with two doses and 32 percent have been boosted with an additional dose. Vaccines are weapons in keeping the virus at bay and preventing hospitalizations and deaths.

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