University engineering students have been using their skills to gain experience in an engineering field that can help save lives.
Since 2011, the LSU College of Engineering’s industrial engineering program has been a partner of East Baton Rouge’s Department of Emergency Medical Services.  
Dr. Dan Godbee, formerly an engineering student at Mercer University, reached out to University engineering professor, Craig M. Harvey about a partnership back when Godbee was at the now-closed Earl K. Long Medical Center.
“We were looking for better ways to improve the way they provide medical care,” Harvey said. “[We wanted to improve] the processes by not necessarily medicine, but the process by which it went by.”
Harvey said he and the other industrial engineering professors spoke to Godbee about ways the students could help the hospital. When the possibility of a capstone course was brought up, the two sides agreed that would be the most beneficial way to work.
“The students like the projects because it’s real world, they can see an impact where they’re helping the community…and it’s medical related” Harvey said. “One of the focus areas in industrial engineering right now is medical-type work, medical improvement, and medical process improvement. The students come back, and they always say it’s the best experience they’ve ever had. They get a really good experience out of it and a really good educational piece as well.”
During the duration of one of the projects, there was an incident where the decision of not building an extra EMS facility would reduce travel time. Harvey explained how the students decided that investing in a new facility would have been a waste of money because the new building would not have improved the workspace. Harvey said this was the most memorable thing any of his teams of students have ever done.
“The fire chief at the time told [me] that he’s never been told not to do something,” Harvey said. “That kind of thing stood out at the time. It influenced people, but also didn’t impact anyone badly.”

Harvey also spoke about a graduate student who designed a model for ambulances to more effectively map and time out their routes. He said the different types of projects the students are participating in helps make it a growing, interesting partnership.

“I think [the EMS project] will continue to grow,” Harvey said. “We’re up to 45 different projects a year, at least. It’s a pretty substantial number of projects they’re doing with [the students]. We try to have a diversity of projects because students tend to want to do different things as well, so we try to keep everything mixed. There’s never a shortage of projects with them.“

The industrial engineering program traditionally has dealt with manufacturing in the service industry and  recently has shifted its attention to the healthcare field. Harvey said engineers are the key to significantly improving healthcare, and the partnership with EMS is the first step for aspiring engineers to contribute.

“We lead in medical cures, but where we have the biggest challenges in is in health care productivity,” Harvey said. “How do you make the delivery of health care more effective? How do we make sure the patient goes through the process in the most efficient and effective way, and that’s where industrial engineers talents are – is how do you improve processes – and we’re trying to address that in the healthcare arena.”