SSIE alumni offer aid to COVID-19 fight
In these uncertain times, many alumni of the Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering at the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science are stepping up to apply their unique skill set to address the effects of COVID-19. Here are just a couple of their stories.
System engineer to medic
Vrushabh Shah’s background in engineering and medicine is currently finding great use in New York City.
A class of 2018 graduate of the executive program in health systems in Manhattan, Shah (Rushi to his friends) has been working as a clinical systems engineer for New York-Presbyterian Hospital — at least until recently.
His endeavors in healthcare process improvement led to a system to match the increasing local hospital staffing needs with a pool of resources to ensure optimal staffing deployment. Because he was previously involved in emergency medicine through the Harpur’s Ferry Student Volunteer Ambulance Service, Mobile Life Support Services and other roles, he has been redeployed to the Emergency Department at New York Presbyterian-Columbia to assist as a medic due to the surge of patients.
Shah is using his knowledge of engineering and medicine to provide better healthcare, and we are grateful to all of the frontline workers helping our country through the pandemic.
Organization helps healthcare workers
Lindsay Wax was a business student in Albany before entering Binghamton University’s health systems graduate program in Manhattan. While her career path has taken new directions since her graduation, nothing could have predicted how useful she finds her health systems skills now.
Wax’s team within the Montefiore Health System has been redirected to deal with data-driven needs related to COVID-19. Currently, her team helps Montefiore organize all employee sick-call data, makes sure that tests are scheduled when needed for employees, and ensures that employees know when they should and should not come into work when sick.
Her team also helps to create informational documents that the hospitals can print and hang on the frontline walls to remind healthcare employees how to apply and remove PPE properly, what to do if they are feeling symptoms of COVID-19, how to stay clean at home and other important ways to maintain their well-being while aiding public health.
Wax works as a performance improvement specialist with the Montefiore Health System since her graduation in 2019. Having alumni like her focusing their abilities in data analysis and healthcare communication mean that our frontline healthcare workers — and by extension, all of us — can be healthier.