Managing patient care through an AI-powered command centre

Overview

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has worked alongside GE Healthcare to create Europe’s first hospital command centre powered by artificial intelligence (AI). The centre provides a clear, instant and real-time overview across the trust’s 800 beds to help staff make quick and informed decisions on how best to manage patient care.

What the organisation faced

More than 96 per cent of the 800-bed capacity at Bradford Royal Infirmary is used regularly and the hospital’s A&E department attracts 125,000 attendances each year - up 40 per cent in the last ten years. 

The hospital began looking at new ways to deliver high-quality care for patients, focusing on treating patients in the wards best suited to manage their care while also reducing the time patients spend in hospital once they are ready to leave. 

Improvement

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has worked alongside GE Healthcare and trust staff to create Europe’s first hospital command centre powered by artificial intelligence. 

A series of screens, as well as tablets and mobile devices, show real-time data from multiple systems across the hospital, providing 24/7 support to busy medical teams across the hospital. 

Advanced algorithms help staff anticipate and resolve bottlenecks in care delivery before they occur, recommending actions to enable faster, more responsive patient care and better allocation of resources. 

Outcomes

The command centre is helping to orchestrate the delivery of care across the organisation, bringing consistency to processes, prioritising actions, eliminating waste and predicting tomorrow’s pressure points.

Up to 20 highly qualified clinical staff monitor a constant flow of real-time and predictive data that is shown in the command centre. 

This is playing a key role in helping the trust to reduce the time a patient spends in hospital when they are ready to leave, increasing the proportion of patients who are admitted, transferred or discharged from A&E within four hours, and helping ensure patients are treated in the wards best suited to manage their often complex care. This is contributing towards a reduced length of stay for patients while also alleviating the need for additional wards and beds, especially during peak winter times, and reducing cancellations for non-emergency surgery.

The centre is allowing the trust to boost the efficiency of its operations and alleviate pressure on staff, needing less time to organise care and allowing more time to deliver care.