Back to Research Associate at AI/Hub, Durham College

Predicting Emergency-Department Wait Times

Built a forecasting model that gives triage teams an early estimate of how long incoming patients may wait before being seen.

HealthcarePredictive AnalyticsPython

Project Details

Hospitals often lack an accurate real-time picture of queue length, so by merging triage, staffing, and census data we developed a gradient-boosted model that delivered wait-time estimates within eight minutes. Nurses reported improved scheduling confidence and clearer communication with patients, and their feedback guided refinements to the user interface.

Key Achievements

  • Pilot deployment across three hospitals achieved mean absolute error of roughly eight minutes.
  • User surveys indicated a 20 percent improvement in scheduling confidence.