Apurv Soni receives "29 Who Shine" Award

Apurv Soni – MD/PhD candidate is recognized for his outstanding service. On May 13th, he received the “29 Who Shine” award presented by Governor Baker. Each year, these awards are given to one student from each of the Commonwealth’s 29 public campuses. Students in the Class of 2021 are being recognized for their resilience in the face of pandemic-related challenges and their willingness to pitch in and support COVID-19 relief efforts.  Click here read the UMassMedNews article posted on May 7, 2021. Click here to watch the ceremony posted on YouTube.  Fast forward to 38.26: Jeroan’s description of Apurv’s accomplishments.

Through his efforts, Apurv directly impacted how and where care is provided to COVID-19 patients in Massachusetts. In the early days of the pandemic, he was recruited because of his dissertation work on predictive analytics to join a taskforce that was defining criteria for hospitalizing patients with COVID-19. He developed an algorithm to identify patients who could safely receive care in the local COVID-19 field hospital. Apurv coordinated a team of 50 fellow medical students to lead a crowd-sourced effort of data curation that informed the predictive algorithm. He also worked with a team of physicians, case managers, and technology analysts to develop and deploy the algorithm within the electronic medical record over the course of three weeks. The algorithm continues to be used by healthcare providers in making triage decisions.