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Tohoku University researchers have revealed the development of a new model that enables greater effectiveness in allocating hospitals that treat critically ill patient - potentially reducing the burden placed on the Japanese health care system in the wake of COVID-19. The new model will take advantage of D-Wave Systems Inc.'s quantum technology.

D-Wave Systems Inc. is a leading developer of quantum computing systems, software and services. On March 31, the company announced that its newly created Leap2 software - a cloud service that provides access to classical and quantum computer resources - is available free to researchers working on responses to COVID-19. It helps researchers to analyze new diagnostic methods, model the spread of the virus, and use quantum technology to optimize logistics in hospitals and medicine distribution.

COVID-19 has placed immense pressures on health care systems across the world, with Japan being no exception. To help alleviate this, Dr. Ohzeki from the Quantum Annealing Research and Development (T-QARD) at Tohoku University's Graduate School of Information Sciences responded to the research initiative with the announcement of the new model.

The model, which improves hospital allocations for critically infected patients, is being developed and tested by Dr. Ohzeki and a team of researchers at T-QARD. Leap 2 will allow the team to account for up to 10,000 variables dealing with patients and hospitals.

"We are excited to join this initiative," explains Dr. Ohzeki. "We have already gotten started by building an optimization formulation for planning which hospital to allocate critically ill patients to prevent a collapse in the health care system."

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