Updated: Fri, 10/11/2024 - 12:00

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Accès au campus et aux immeubles, cours et modalités de travail : retour à la normale à compter du samedi 12 octobre. Complément d’information : Direction de la protection et de la prévention.

In-Person Information Session
Meet us at our Montreal downtown campus on Sunday, October 27, 2024, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m

Montreal Children’s Hospital

Montreal Children’s Hospital

Company profile

The Montreal Children’s Hospital (MCH) provides the highest quality healthcare to infants, children and teenagers. Each year tens of thousands of children and families from across Quebec and beyond seek care from our health professionals. The Montreal Children's Hospital is a tertiary care pediatric teaching hospital, as part of the McGill University Health Centre. The MCH constantly pioneers new expertise through research, innovation and sharing of knowledge to meet the ever-changing needs of our young patients.

Division: Montreal Children’s Hospital - Pediatric Hospital
Industry: Hospital & Healthcare
Year: 2019

Student Team

Katianicia Sory

Katianicia Sory
Project Role: Business Strategy & UX/UI
Education Background: B.BA., Business Administration, HEC Montreal

Omar Chehab

Omar Chehab
Project Role: 45% UX/UI; 35% Modelling; 10% Business Strategist; 10% Solution Architecture
Edu Background: B.BA., Business Administration, American University of Beirut


C. Victoria McKeown

C. Victoria McKeown
Project Role: Modeler & Business Strategist
Education Background: B.Com., Operations Management, University of Calgary

Kyle Gomes

Kyle Gomes
Project Role: TBC
Education Background: B.Sc. in BA.,Business Administration and Management, Boston University


Use Case 1

Creation of a calculator tool that will help units order PPE more effectively

Pain Points

  • No visibility into demand trends for PPE
  • No analytical support for units when making ordering decisions

Solution Analysis

  • Determined an additional three internal and three external sources of related data
  • Determination of data collection and standardization strategy (form)

Solution Build

  • Data cleaning and consolidation Python and R files
  • Data cleaning and consolidation process document
  • Proposed PPE Order form with paired Excel file
  • PPE Calculator Excel File for users
  • Linear Regression R file

Value Drivers

  • Decreased time spent creating and fulfilling orders
  • Decreased time spent consolidating data for analysis

Modeling & KPIs

  • Developed 2 regression models to predict PPE demand
  • Created standardized, consolidated dataset that incorporated internal and external data

Technical Architecture

  • New solution data flow diagram

UX/UI

  • PPE calculator interface
  • Stakeholder map
  • User process improvement

Use Case 2

Assess the performance of the telehealth expansion

Pain Points

  • No visibility on telehealth services volumes and trends
  • Need of a visualisation tool and KPIS to evaluate telehealth performance across departments
  • Measuring the User and Provider Experience in Telehealth (KPIs measurement)
  • Understanding what are different factors that define patient and provider satisfaction in telehealth (KPI definition)

Solution Analysis

  • Comparative analysis of telehealth applications​
  • Estimation of telehealth services benefits
  • Revised UX Process Flow, UX surveys for patient and providers
  • Feature engineering, hypothetical data simulation and application of Random Forest Feature Selection Algorithm to determine KPIs that influence the User and provider’s satisfaction in telehealth

Solution Build

  • A predictive model of telehealth volumes​
  • Interactive dashboard in Power BI
  • UX Process Flow, UX surveys
  • Feature selection based on Random Forest in Hypothetical data
  • Data cleaning and consolidation Python and R files
  • Data cleaning and consolidation process document
  • Proposed PPE Order form with paired Excel file
  • PPE Calculator Excel File for users
  • Linear Regression R file

Value Drivers

  • Patients opportunity costs
  • Physicians opportunity costs
  • Internet connectivity costs, camera costs, microphone costs, software and license costs
  • Stakeholders/Key players analysis in Montreal
  • Pain point analysis

Modeling & KPIs

  • Automate KPIs calculations
  • Built forecasting models of telehealth volumes
  • Feature engineering/construction
  • Feature selection/importance

Technical Architecture

  • Current architecture diagrams
  • Telehealth platforms comparison
  • Videoconferencing applications comparison
  • Enhancing data collection method for in-clinic appointments

UX/UI

  • Dashboard
  • UX Process Flow (Current & Revised)
  • UX Surveys & Market Research Process

Screenshot - Montreal Children's Hospital

Partner Commentary

"The MMA program allowed students to gather information, get comfortable in an area that they’re not very familiar with, and come up with sophisticated solutions that were immediately applicable in a very short period of time,” says Dr. Adrian Dancea, pediatric cardiologist and a physician who worked with MMA students earlier this year. The partnership between the Children’s and the MMA program has tremendous value in finding novel solutions to complex problems created by outside events - an asset that is likely to prove helpful not just in the past, but in the future as well.

Adrian B. Dancea, MD, MBA, FRCP, Pediatric Cardiologist

Student Commentary

Katia Sory

Thanks to this project, I have learned to bridge the gap - that every new graduate student has to face - between my theoretical concepts and the industry market. I quickly realized the importance of understanding the business world and its realities to tailor a solution to meeting the clients' requirements. Moreover, this project provided me with the validation that I could see all of my new skills and knowledge (acquired throughout the MMA program) integrated into my work.

The faculty and client mentorship during my year at McGill have laid solid foundations of support and guidance. Specifically, they helped me tremendously in getting my bearings and navigate between my professional etiquette with the clients and my problem-solving process when tackling the client's business issue.

As far as I am concerned, the most exciting part of the project was to bring my analytical skills to the table while giving back to the community during an unprecedented crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has been hitting and pressuring the healthcare industry, so the actual decision to work with the Montreal Children's Hospital was also exciting on its own.

To my fellow future MMA students, I would say: "Buckle up for this intensive yet rewarding year because you will be learning soft and hard skills regardless of your previous background."

Omar Chehab

This project enabled me to see a new intersection between telehealth and data analytics, which gave me the opportunity to explore a new field and area of interest that I never thought about before pursuing my masters.

With little experience in healthcare, the project served as an eye opener to explore a new interesting field, where the power of data analytics can be deployed and harnessed to provide tremendous value to stakeholders. It was interesting to see how the skills I learned throughout the MMA program can be transferable across different industries.

By having the right guidance and mentorship from the faculty and client, I was able to successfully learn about an interesting new industry and understand the value of data analytics in healthcare.

I believe that future students should not hesitate to choose a project that is not relevant to their previous experience or education. Incoming students can learn about new industries, and explore new fields, which is always interesting. I encourage students to be audacious and have the willingness to learn about new areas where data analytics can be applied.

Victoria McKeown

Working directly with a client gave us the opportunity to fit our solution to their needs and experience what it’s like to respond to a real-world problem.

We could not have done this project without the mentorship of the hospital. Their team understands the problem we were trying to solve better than anyone because they live it. Even a near perfect model wouldn’t mean anything if we had used the wrong data or created a solution that wasn’t feasible to implement. In our case, this was particularly important for us when we were deciding how to group observations into categories and which variables to use in our analysis.

The most exciting part of this project was getting to work on an analytical problem that directly impacted the community around us. The goal for our solution is really to make it easier for the hospital to continue to care for patients during the pandemic.


Submit your project or book a consultation for us to develop a project with you.

mma [at] mcgil.ca (subject: MMA%20Gives) (Submit)

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