Routable AI typically develops AI-powered vehicle and transportation management technology. In April 2020 the company received a call from Boston Medical Center (BMC). The BMC was looking for programming help to build a platform to automate patient intake and bed assignments for the homeless during COVID-19.
In only 4 days, Routable AI used their existing infrastructure for their current product model to completely build and deploy a bed management system for BMC for free. The system will be used to help manage the inflow of homeless patients at facilities by automatically assigning them to open beds and routing ambulances out to take them to the correct facilities.
To learn more, Digital Journal spoke with Routable AI’s CTO Alex Wallar.
Digital Journal: How deeply is the novel coronavirus disrupting society?
Alex Wallar: This global crisis is disrupting all of society, as everyone is in some way affected. Our team really wanted to help make a difference during this difficult and stressful time and spent time thinking of ways we could apply our technology to help optimize aspects of the healthcare industry. In particular, we believe it’s important to help the healthcare workers and first responders on the front line, as well as at-risk populations who cannot fend for themselves.
DJ: How about the homeless population specifically?
Wallar: Homeless people are among the most vulnerable to illnesses, as many aspects of their lifestyle make it challenging to maintain social distancing and practice good hygiene. With COVID-19, this population has the potential to be a high-spread carrier, particularly when homeless patients in different risk groups are all treated in the same facility. For instance, some might have known exposure and all symptoms, while others may be asymptomatic or have had no exposure. These different patients cannot be in the same place and must be carefully separated, a daunting task for healthcare workers already swamped with case management and treatment of the virus.
DJ: How is Routable AI providing support for the homeless?
Wallar:A few weeks ago, we received a call from the Boston Medical Center, looking for programming help to build a platform capable of automating patient intake and bed assignments for the homeless during the pandemic. The platform will be utilized by the Boston Health Care for the Homeless program to more efficiently ensure the homeless population receive appropriate care, thereby slowing the spread of COVID-19. We thought this mission was so important and wanted to help immediately, particularly since, at its core, this is an optimization problem and one which is well-suited to our platform.
Our team decided to drop our usual work and within 48 hours, we built a prototype of a bed management system, free of charge, using existing infrastructure for our current product model. After just four days, this system was ready for testing in the field and will soon be fully deployed for use by BHCHP healthcare workers on the front lines.
DJ: Which types of technologies are you deploying?
Wallar:We built a system that keeps track of every bed in each facility used within BHCHP’s network. Each bed has a set of labels describing certain characteristics and amenities of the facility that will align with a patient’s condition or preferences to match them to the most appropriate facility. Examples of labels include “known exposure,” or “private bathroom access.” With the press of a button, the system can automatically decide which patient to send to which facility and, further, which specific bed the patient should be allocated to.
This optimization saves healthcare workers precious time during intake by taking into account patient characteristics and condition as well as available beds at facilities nearby. We can even extend this system in the future by incorporating our vehicle routing technology to manage a fleet of ambulances that could be automatically dispatched to transport patients to the facility they are assigned to. A full video of how this technology works can be found here. Our goal is to find other hospitals, homeless shelters and facilities that are managing patients in this tough time and offer this platform to them as well.
DJ: Which organizations are you working with?
Wallar: Our team is working closely with the Boston Medical Center and Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP).
