A Proposal to Improve Emergency Room Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Accessibility

• Shiyin Wang, Victor Agbafe, Rahul Chowdhury, and Shweta Chopra

• MIT News

• Our Solution Report PPT

• Apr 2019

I participated in the Policy Hackathon organized by IDSS. Prior to the hackathon, I posted group advertisements for team members on Facebook, and eventually formed a diverse group (called “ER-Flash”) composed of four people with specialties in consulting, politics, government, and data science. As the data science expert, I was responsible for data analysis, data visualization, modeling, and report formatting with Latex. In an intense 24 hours, we made a proposal to improve emergency rooms’ efficiency, effectiveness, and accessibility by recommending: 1) reducing the number of patients visiting the ER by primary care providers, 2) financial incentives, 3) strategic queuing, and 4) staffing interventions. I provided evidence for our suggestions through exploratory data analysis and queuing models.