The work enhances the hospital’s own modelling, and provides insight into how day-to-day activities might be affected by a rise in patient numbers in the coming weeks or months.
‘Discrete event simulations’ have been worked up by a team from the University’s Department of Engineering to manage the flow of patients through hospital wards in the event of a surge in cases, and anticipate waiting times, bed availability, and equipment and staff shortages.
Lead on the simulation development, Dr Ajith Parlikad, of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing, said: “It’s looking at the physical flow of patients and projecting admissions rates into the future - identifying where ‘bottlenecks’ might occur, and where the hospital might need to scale up beds, ventilators, oxygen and staff as part of their COVID-19-orientated activities.
“We started with a flow diagram of how we thought the hospital worked, then talked it through with the team at Addenbrooke’s. It was quite close to their own model, but we were able to factor in more details, such as ICU beds, ‘COVID-positive’ beds (patients with the virus who don’t require intensive care), and the initial checking and testing process when patients arrive – everything has a statistical distribution associated with it.”
As well as patient flow modelling, the Department is supporting Addenbrooke’s in a number of other ways. Industrial engineering students are volunteering their time to focus on the hospital’s oxygen supply, among other things how it might be replenished and filtered, and are also looking at how to model and optimise COVID-19 testing processes. Colleagues Tom Ridgman and Florian Urmetzer are co-ordinating the volunteer student group.
In addition, further work is beginning on modelling that will help the hospital better understand staffing level availability during disruptions such as the COVID-19 outbreak.
Image: Addenbrooke's Hospital site
Credit: Sir Cam
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge