Improving EMS Response to Mental Illness with AI
MEETING FOR THE WEEK OF July 8, 2024
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Improving EMS Response to Mental Illness with AI
Speaker: Pierce Wright
Is this your first time to visit us? If so, welcome to our weekly online meeting! To complete our meeting, please continue reading from here to the bottom of this page. Each Monday, our week’s meeting is posted early in the morning, U.S. Pacific Time. These meetings are designed so that you can read and watch what we post anytime during the week. The entire meeting takes about 60 minutes to complete, with the video conference recording of the program being the bulk of the time. Note that you can easily read this meeting with your favorite device, so feel free to take our meeting on the go with you. Please also complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!
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Message from our President
As the 2024-2025 President of our Club, I extend a warm welcome to our members, friends, and guests. Thanks for joining our weekly meeting.
WEEKLY FUNNY WITH SHAGS
We believe laughter is an important part of life, and we should all make time to laugh a little. This segment of our meeting is meant to tickle you just enough. These funnies are curated by member Steven "Shags" Shagrin!
Scientific Golf Facts
New golf balls have a strong attraction to water, and the power of the attraction is directly proportionate to how much the balls cost.
With golf, the slow groups are always in front of you and the quick groups are always behind you.
Golf is the only game where the ball lies poorly, and the golfers lie well.
INSPIRATION
One of the stories we've followed over the years is that of Boyan Slat and The Ocean Cleanup. It's a bold plan to remove plastic from the world's waterways and oceans, and they've overcome skepticism, design challenges, and more to build systems that are genuinely doing the job. We haven't gotten someone from the organization to talk to us yet, but it's only a matter of time! This video is their end-of-2023 celebration of their accomplishments for the year. Shouldn't Rotary clubs have videos like this, too?
LEARN SOMETHING NEW
Why 1.5 Billion People Eat With Chopsticks
Author Jennifer 8. Lee explains how the chopstick spread from the East to the West -- and was designed to give you the perfect bite.
Club News For Members
Our Club News and Member links are now on the Members Only ClubRunner Site and are emailed weekly as a Club Bulletin. Please make sure your email address is current on ClubRunner.
Members, be sure to read our newsletter sent separately to your email address on file in ClubRunner each Monday. In it, you will find updates and information about what our members are up to, club activities, projects, Happy Dollars, news from the District, and ways of supporting The Rotary Foundation. We also email your Dues notices using the ClubRunner email.
Our Monday newsletters provide vital updates, so to stay informed, please ensure your email is current on ClubRunner and add mailservice@clubrunner.ca to your address book so it does not go into Spam.
PROGRAM: Looking Back, Looking Forward
SPEAKER: Pierce Wright
We bring you a new program every week on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education and how they contribute to service to others.
The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley seeks to explore perspectives on service from across the world. The views of the speakers in our programs are their own and, unless stated otherwise, are not necessarily reflective of the views of our eClub or Rotary International.
If you have an idea for a cool speaker, please feel free to reach out to them directly or submit THIS FORM so our Program Committee can contact them!
This week is the first of three in a row in which we feature students who have done amazing work to improve the lives of others.
This presentation is an overview of a project our speaker, Pierce Wright, developed aiming to predict the nature of incoming Emergency Medical Service (EMS) calls by training an algorithm. A volunteer EMR, Wright found most ambulance calls he fielded related to mental health and substance abuse—which most EMS responders are not trained to treat—resulting in the patient being transported to an emergency department (ED). Utilizing EMS to “transport” the increasing number of mental health calls creates two public health risks: (1) an ambulance becomes unavailable for a trauma call, and (2) the patient may be admitted to an ED, often at public expense, when mental health treatment is more appropriate.
A policy solution is to create specific EMS crews staffed with mental health professionals, using the predictive algorithm to identify such calls. After a retrospective study of AI projects in this space, Pierce established an algorithm using 24 million interactions from New York City’s (NYC) EMS Incident Dispatch Data from January 2005 - March 2022. The algorithm was validated with additional data from April - December 2022. The algorithm achieved 94.5% predictability, compared to 92.3% accuracy for EMS operators. Across 9 million NYC 911 calls annually, the algorithm could more effectively allocate resources for 198,000 cases. Extrapolated nationally based on data found in Karaca & Moore (2020), where $5.6 billion is spent annually on mental and substance use disorder ED visits, savings of $123 million may be possible—more if the algorithm can prevent misguided hospital admissions. Additional data, such as new call types and customization for regional municipalities, would make the model more robust and scalable.
Pierce Wright is a rising high school senior at The Browning School in New York City. He is a nationally certified Emergency Medical Responder and has spent over 500 hours on shift with the Westport (CT) Volunteer EMS. His paper on his work with EMS incident data has been accepted for presentation at conferences worldwide, including as the keynote speaker at the International Experts Summit on Public Health and Preventative Medicine in 2025. Pierce’s work has received numerous awards, including first place at the TerraNYC STEM Fair and second place at the New York State Science & Engineering Fair. He has also received the President’s Volunteer Service Award (Silver Medal). In his free time, Pierce enjoys listening to music, fly fishing, computer builds, and walking his Samoyed Cloud in Central Park.
Members and guests, please welcome Pierce Wright!
To read the paper about this project, please visit: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4782065
Our Three Podcast Series
Our main program speakers are available as podcasts in addition to YouTube videos! Each week, they are available on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
Or you can click below for this week’s speaker:
The Weekly Rotarian
Inspiring Solutions
And our original podcast, featuring some of the best of our previous speakers, is still available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Development Success Stories
Our third podcast features success stories about economic development from around the world. It is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or you can click below.
UPCOMING PROGRAM RECORDING SCHEDULE
All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online over Zoom video conference. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 30 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.
Our online video conference room link for these recordings is always http://zoom.siliconvalleyrotary.com/. You are welcome to join us! Please note the timezone listed for all recordings is US Pacific Time (San Francisco, California, USA).
If you can’t join the live recording, please send your questions for an upcoming speaker to programs@siliconvalleyrotary.com.
THE ATTENDANCE SURVEY
Thanks for reading and watching this week’s meeting. You have two last things to do before you’re done.
We have a very short attendance survey below for you to fill out to record your attendance.
Visiting Rotarians, this is how you can get an email receipt to pass along to your club’s secretary as proof that you’ve attended our meeting if you need it for makeup.
Non-Rotarian Guests, we would love to see who is dropping by our meetings! This part is optional for you. If you think you may want to join our eClub at some point in the future, we would strongly recommend you fill out the attendance form as it will improve your chances of success for your membership application.
For all members and guests — we strongly recommend and ask that you leave a comment in our comments area below. Tell us how you enjoyed the program. Ask this week’s speaker any questions you might have. Or just stop by and say hello and tell us where you’re from!
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