Experts offer advice on avoiding coronavirus
News about COVID-19 changes rapidly, which can leave many feeling confused about what they should do to protect themselves and others.
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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News about COVID-19 changes rapidly, which can leave many feeling confused about what they should do to protect themselves and others.
Coronavirus is well on its way to overwhelming US hospitals, but the capacity of health care systems varies widely from state-to-state and even city by city, and new data reveals which areas will be hit hardest.
One-by-one over the past several weeks, Washington has gone through the steps at its disposal, each one more stringent and disruptive than the last, to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The World Health Organization has been criticized for being slow to declare a public health emergency and a pandemic as COVID-19 spread. Yale SOM’s Saed Alizamir, with Francis de Véricourt of ESMT and Shouqiang Wang of the University of Texas at Dallas, recently published a study that uses game theory to play out the tradeoffs that the WHO and other public agencies face as they try to give timely warnings while maintaining their credibility. We asked them what their findings say about the response to COVID-19.
Grocery aisles look post-apocalyptic right now. Toilet paper? It will make a comeback, but in its place, life-preserving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies could become perilously scarce a true additional emergency.

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