Hospitals in Warwickshire are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to potentially save millions of pounds a year by cutting waiting lists and allowing doctors to see more patients.
Reducing risk
The AI technology, developed by Deep Medical, identifies patients who are at high risk of missing their appointments by not showing up or cancelling them at short notice and offering them alternative dates.
Initial results from hospitals run by the George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust and the South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust (SWFT) show a 33% overall increase in the number of attendances and a 28.8% reduction in Did Not Attend (DNA) rates. This equates to an estimated £36,157 a week of total added value across both trusts.
Harkamal Heran, Chief Operating Officer at SWFT, said: “Timely access to diagnostic tests and hospital appointments is crucial in quickly diagnosing and treating illnesses such as cancer.” He continued: “Our partnership has enabled us to develop tools to provide volunteers, who are vital in supporting our organisation to provide outstanding patient care, with increased information. With the additional data, these volunteers can assist patients in accessing timely diagnostic tests and appointments, further enhancing our services.”
Tackling key barriers
Dr Benyamin Deldar, Deep Medical’s co-founder and an NHS doctor, explained: “Our advanced AI helps tackle key barriers that prevent patients from attending appointments, such as the inability to afford hospital parking, restricted communication outlets, and complex personal schedules. By addressing these issues, the AI ensures that patients have better access to the healthcare they need.
“We’ve created a system that can better identify and offer support for patients, while importantly tackling the NHS waiting list.
“People at high risk of missing their appointment are also sent targeted reminders, helping to reduce the risk of conditions such as cancer going undiagnosed,” he concluded.
Volunteers have crucial role
The technology is being used by volunteers.
Mark Lever, CEO of Helpforce, a national charity that supports more volunteering in the NHS, said: “We’ve been supporting the trusts to pilot and evaluate the impact of volunteers calling people ahead of appointments, and we know that has already reduced missed appointments.” He continued: “With access to Deep Medical’s waiting list AI tool, this is set to significantly increase, with volunteers able to target calls to the people most likely to struggle to get to their appointment. This will improve the system’s efficiency and, most importantly, get often vulnerable people diagnosed and into treatment more quickly, helping to reduce health inequalities.”
Jenni Northcote, Chief Strategy, Improvement and Partnership Officer at George Eliot said: “In this initiative our volunteers utilise intelligent data to contact individuals who may be struggling to attend appointments and understand the barriers they face in accessing care, or, if they no longer require an appointment, ensure it can be offered to other patients.
“We have seen a fantastic reduction in DNAs and learned a lot about the issues people face in attending appointments, helping us to develop more patient-focused services.”
Significant savings
Deep Medical’s technology is being trialled in a number of hospitals.
Dr Vin Diwakar, the national director for transformation at NHS England, said: “The use of AI to help reduce the number of missed appointments is another example of how new technologies are helping to improve care for patients.
“Not only can these technologies help to free up doctors’ time to treat more patients and reduce waiting times for planned care, it means a significant amount of money can be invested in frontline care rather than lost to missed appointments,” he added.
In one trust, the Mid and South Essex, the technology is predicted to allow an extra 80-100,000 patients to be seen each year. The trust supports a population of 1.2 million and has an average 8% no-show rate.
Published data shows that of 124.5 million outpatient appointments across the NHS in England last year, patients failed to attend eight million (6.4%) of them ‒ a level which costs the NHS £1.5 billion per year.
