University team develops a tool to help hospitals with capacity planning

The Predictive Healthcare Team from the University of Pennsylvania developed a tool, the Covid-19 Hospital Impact Model for Epidemics (CHIME), to assist hospitals with capacity planning around Covid-19.

As demand increases following the pandemic outbreak, hospital systems need up-to-date projections of what additional resources will be required. CHIME will give informed estimates of how many patients will need hospitalization, ICU beds, and mechanical ventilation.

CHIME allows hospitals to enter information about their population and modify assumptions around the spread and behaviour of Covid-19. The default parameters are customised and updated to reflect the situation at Penn Medicine but CHIME can be adapted to the local contexts by modifying the information.

The most impactful parameter the tool takes into account, is the Doubling Time that defines how rapidly a disease spread. The tool also takes into account:
- Currently known regional infections
- Currently hospitalized Covid-19 patients
- Hospital market share

The tool is available in open-source for the entire healthcare community.

Adapted from: http://predictivehealthcare.pennmedicine.org/2020/03/14/accouncing-chime...
More information: http://predictivehealthcare.pennmedicine.org/2020/03/14/accouncing-chime...
https://penn-chime.phl.io/
Access the open source: https://github.com/CodeForPhilly/chime/