Smart Emergency Response

Technion and Galilee Medical Center Successfully Test Student-developed Information System

(l-r) Tal Alon and Yarden Shapira

Students from Technion’s LAPIDIM Excellence Program at the Faculty of Computer Science – Tal Alon and Yarden Shapira – recently developed an innovative information system designed to help the management team of the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya make educated and informed decisions in times of emergency. The system was recently implemented in a successful “war drill” in cooperation with the emergency department at the Health Ministry, the IDF Home Front Command, Israel Police, Magen David Adom, fire rescue services and the Nahariya Municipality. The students created a system that includes a user-friendly interface and that presents the management of the Medical Center with a wide range of vital data in real time: the number of people in a ward, anticipated hospitalizations, anticipated patient discharges, availability of operating rooms and blood units.

Students Tal Alon and Yarden Shapira conducted the project under the supervision of Prof. Benny Kimelfeld, the academic supervisor of the LAPIDIM Excellence Program and in collaboration with the Information Systems Department and the management team of the Galilee Medical Center. “The project was initiated as a result of my meeting with Dr. Ziv Paz, Director of the Rheumatology Unit and Assistant Director for Technology and Innovation at the Galilee Medical Center,” says Prof. Kimelfeld. “He believed that the cooperation between us might be useful in the context of databases and analysis of information. At the same time, students from Technion’s LAPIDIM Program asked whether I knew of any projects in ‘the real world’ wherein they could express their technological, entrepreneurial and managerial skills, and make an immediate impact.”

(l-r) Prof. Benny Kimelfeld, Tal Alon and Yarden Shapira

Thus, the connection between the Faculty of Computer Science and the Medical Center began. After several ideas for joint projects were presented, the Center’s administration raised the subject of drill preparedness: the practice of war scenarios and complex multi-casualty events. The Medical Center noted that the problem with such events is that the varied information such as – the locations of the teams, injury levels, and the burden on the wards is not readily available to the management in real-time and that in order to obtain this information they need to contact IT professionals.

Alon and Shapira together with Shelly Shalem, Tomer Biton and Mark Lifshitz of the Medical Center’s information systems department began mapping the information sources. They found 150 different systems, and understood that an integrated system that would distill the relevant information in a friendly and simple manner to the management was required. The students developed the model for the project using a Full Stack approach – a holistic method that handles all aspects from the server and the database to the user interface.

“We provide our students with a variety of technological as well as soft skills; such as teamwork and interpersonal communication, but Tal and Yarden were also required to deal with executive aspects. Each of their recommendations had to pass through a number of managers who would approve, correct or revoke their suggestions. They worked at a very fast pace compared with the norm in large organizations such as hospitals. When they were asked to find a solution to a problem, they would do so rapidly surprising the staff with their quick response time.”

According to Prof. Kimelfeld, “As computer scientists, such collaborations are an excellent opportunity to develop innovative technologies. What we usually lack is the vast database available in public and industrial organizations, and here we were privy to this resource in the process of close collaboration that allowed access to servers and information without compromising patient privacy. We have also had meetings regarding other such projects, and there is potential to work with other bodies that need information processing support. In such collaborations, in addition to students, we can also include faculty members who are interested in working on large databases in their research.”

In recent years, the Galilee Medical Center, headed by Dr. Masad Barhoum, a graduate of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, has been working to implement technological initiatives. Dr. Barhoum, general director of the Medical Center said, “I would like to thank the Technion and Prof. Kimelfeld for the cooperation that enabled us to integrate the system developed by the students into a large and extensive exercise that we held recently. There is no doubt that the main challenge today is the incorporation and integration of information flowing from many different systems. The ability to integrate information and create a real-time picture of the situation is essential for proper management in an emergency. I am pleased with the cooperation and believe that we are expected to have additional projects in which we will be able to combine forces in designing a leading information system for both routine and emergency use.”

The LAPIDIM Excellence Program of Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science was established over a decade ago with the aim of identifying and training future leaders in the hi-tech industry. The students in the program complete a full course of study in one of the Computer Science tracks, as well as courses in entrepreneurship and management at the William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. The students, who have access to an exclusive study area in the faculty, receive full exemption from university tuition, a monthly stipend, a computer, and personal support and mentoring from a faculty member.