Jameel Institute at Imperial College London launches new tool to help hospitals manage pandemic capacity

London  - With countries across the world strengthening hospitals’ response to the surge in patients requiring critical care during the COVID-19 crisis, the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics (J-IDEA) at Imperial College London has launched a new digital tool that helps hospitals and public health services manage critical capacity more effectively, enabling them to meet the increased demand.

Developed by researchers from the Jameel Institute, the tool – called the J-IDEA Pandemic Hospital Planner – can calculate the capacity of beds, staff and ventilator equipment when implementing a number of healthcare provision interventions, such as cancelling elective surgeries and converting operating theatres to critical care wards. The planner also allows hospital management to calculate the number of additional staff members required to fully operationalise additional beds, including if upskilling and reskilling workers and deploying newly qualified and final year medical students are required.

Dr Katharina Hauck, Deputy Director of the Jameel Institute, who led the work, said: “Some countries are facing a surge in patients requiring urgent life-saving care. The J-IDEA pandemic hospital planner gives practical support to decision makers in preparing hospitals for this difficult task, so they can hopefully save as many lives as possible with the given resources.”

The planner is publicly available for health services around the world, and is interactive and adaptable to different and changing circumstances and newly emerging evidence. Hospital managers can access the tool via the Jameel Institute website.

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Co-founded in 2019 by Imperial College and Community Jameel, the global philanthropy, the Jameel Institute is Imperial's disease outbreak centre and draws together experts in data analytics, epidemiology and economics to combat the threat of diseases and health emergencies in the most vulnerable populations across the globe.

Community Jameel is supporting the response to COVID-19 on a number of fronts, including through the Abdul Latif Jameel Hospital in Jeddah; the Jameel Clinic at MIT, which is using machine learning to discover new therapies to treat the virus; Bab Rizq Jameel, which launched new initiatives supporting small businesses and people seeking employment; and Art Jameel, which is supporting creatives in the Middle East and North Africa region through its Research and Practice Platform.

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For further information, please contact Abir Ben Bechir
abir@communityjameel.org  / +971551012621 

Community Jameel

Driven by a commitment to creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation, and youth, Community Jameel works across six major fields of development: livelihoods, the arts, education, health, climate, and evidence. Community Jameel is active worldwide, by directly implementing programmes and by collaborating with major international institutions and grassroots organisations.

Community Jameel was established in 2003 to continue the Jameel family's tradition of supporting the community, a tradition started in the 1940s by the late Abdul Latif Jameel, founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel business, who throughout his life helped tens of thousands of disadvantaged people improve their lives.

The term “Community Jameel” refers broadly to several distinct, separate and independent legal entities. Community Jameel is not itself a corporate entity, association or conglomerate run by an overarching parent company but merely refers to a group of distinct and wholly independent separate legal entities that are collectively referred to as “Community Jameel”.

© Press Release 2020