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Hughes Hall expertise in the battle against COVID-19

Dr. Ajith Parlikad, Governing Body Fellow at Hughes Hall and Senior Lecturer in the University Engineering Department, has been working with colleagues to support Addenbrooke’s Hospital in the fight against Coronavirus. 

The group have been using modelling originally created to support efficiency in an industrial setting and applying it to the challenges of running a hospital in the current crisis.

The simulations that have been developed and modified by the team will help the hospital to manage the flow of patients with a focus on when and how to best deploy resources. 

Dr. Parlikad 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.”

Read more about the the Department of Engineering’s work to support Addenbrooke’s Hospital here.