Hospital Bed Availability

Background: For this project we critically analyse a visualization of the availability of hospital beds in the state of Massachusetts (shown below). The custom visualization shows the Total available beds, unsuitable beds, baseline licensed beds, surge beds, occupied and available beds for the state of Massachussets. It further splits the categories into ICU, Non ICU and Alternate Beds. This project will highlight the impact of interactivity in data visualization. As an alternative we propose an interactive visualization for conveying the same information.

Proposed Visualization

Proposed Visualization: As a proposed solution we allow the audience to dynamically create a similar visualization based on the values they desire. The visualization uses tooltips for quick reference of the respective values. A validation mechanism is put in place to guard against incorrect values.

Total Hospital Bed Availability

All beds*

Baseline beds*

Occupied beds*

If any, enter targeted surge beds

1. Total Beds. 2 Includes chronic dialysis beds, continuing care nursery beds, maternal service beds, psychiatric beds, rehabilitation beds, special care nursery beds, substance abuse beds, and infant bassinets. If these are converted to med surge acute or ICU beds they will be included in "Surge Beds" category. 3. Non-ICU and ICU beds are in-hospital beds that hospitals can convert to care for COVID patients. Alternate medical beds are essential to ensure hospitals can dedicate capacity for patients in the most acute conditions. 4. As reported.

Alternate Visualization: In addition to the interactive chart, we propose an additional visualization - a Sankey diagram, which offers a complementary perspective on the data. The sankey diagram helps distinguish the categories of bed (ICU, non ICU, surge beds) that available and unavailable.

Project Demo

Team Members:
[1] Xiaoshuai (Maksim) Li (Data Science), Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA. E-mail: xli3@wpi.edu
[2] Noëlle Rakotondravony (Computer Science), Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA. E-mail: ntrakotondravony@wpi.edu
[3] Akim Ndlovu (Computer Science), Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA. E-mail: andlovu@wpi.edu