Welcome to the second episode of Python They Wrote - the official podcast of NIHR ARC South West's Health Service Modelling Associates (HSMA) Programme (https://hsma.co.uk).

In this episode, we give listeners a brief update on our rapidly developing plans for the next round of the HSMA programme (https://hsma.co.uk/hsma7), as well as our new spin-off programme - HSMA Lambda - targeted at senior leaders and decision makers (https://hsma.co.uk/lambda.html).

We then interview the fantastic John Williams (Stroke Performance Analyst at Maidstone Hospital) about his hugely impactful HSMA project, in which he's used simulation modelling to identify strategies to significantly reduce bed utilisation, improve patient experience and outcomes, and save £millions per year in stroke care at the hospital. He talks about how they're looking to push this model out nationally, and their plans to develop AI-assisted tools to identify the optimal allocation of therapy provision. He also talks extensively about his journey into the world of modelling and data science, and what this has meant for him personally.

As ever, we also put him through his paces assessing his pun and murder solving abilities and pose that most fundamental of questions - can arsenic be mistook for salt on fries?

Python They Wrote is a celebration of modelling and data science in healthcare, and features interviews with past and presents students of our HSMA programme talking about real world applied data science in the the health service.

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Subscribe to our YouTube channel : ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@hsma

This podcast is independent research supported by the National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaboration South West. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the National Institute for Health Research or the Department of Health and Social Care