Algorithmic Approach to Medical Staffing Challenge Earns MSABA Candidate Yuzhen Liang Summer Research Assistantship
The Boston University Institute for Health System Innovation & Policy (IHSIP) announced that Yuzhen Liang, a student pursuing her MS in Applied Business Analytics at BU MET, has been awarded a 2021 summer research assistantship for a project aimed at bringing machine learning solutions to the complex challenges of medical care.
Advances in technology, treatment sophistication, and new medication protocols have brought increased complexity to decision-making in medical settings. Even experienced nurses may struggle to prioritize care tasks, which can lead to patients suffering from preventable conditions. Making things more difficult, since the flexible scheduling systems hospitals use to assign nurses to wards is based on patient demand, nurses are less able than they might be to develop expertise in given areas.
Liang’s project, “Application of Machine Learning to Real Time Nurse Dispatching,” aims to remedy this challenge through the use of machine learning methodologies in developing an algorithm to set priorities among a group of patients with different needs that may change over time. The results would be used in conjunction with an electronic health record system to assign, in real time, nurses to patients.
The IHSIP is a University-wide institute that brings together the broad and deep capacities of BU to provide value in addressing the challenges of the health sector, in the United States and globally. Liang’s project corresponds to two domains particularly relevant to the IHSIP: digital health, and health system design and innovation. This project will be conducted within the MET Decision Sciences Research Lab (DSLab), where Liang has been a research assistant since December 2020. Supervising the project will be Associate Professor of the Practice Dr. John Maleyeff, co-director of the DSLab.
For more information about the DSLab, please visit sites.bu.edu/met-dslab.