It is likely that a new approach based on artificial intelligence for hospital beds in a more efficient way in several hospitals in South Australia within the year will be implemented, with plans to implement interest in the next 18 months.
The system provides a prediction of the probability that the patient will be discharged within 24 hours.
Known as the “Adelaida score”, because it offers a number between 0 and 100, the artificial intelligence program predicts the duration of a patient’s stay in the hospital, helping medical care personnel to prioritize tasks to optimize the process Download.
TO Prospective judgment In April 2024, at the Lyell Mcewen hospital, a public hospital in the suburbs of northern Adelaide, found that the program significantly reduced the average duration of the stages in the hospital and the re -entry rate.
Its developers expect that by increasing the flow of patients through hospitals to help relieve ambulance ramp and pressure on first -line health professionals, a problem that affects health systems throughout Australia And elsewhere.
“The Australian health system is wonderful, but is under tension,” said Dr. Stephen Bacchi, a neurologist and associate professor at the University of Adelaida Cosmos.
“Australia can be a world leader here … I think it’s a very exciting moment for AI and I think it can really provide benefits for the patient, and we want to deliver that.”
Rationalization of patient flow
The Adelaida score is trained to take objective data from the electronic health registration of a patient, such as vital signs and the results of blood tests, and predict the probability that a patient is ready for high within 24 hours .
The prediction is not provided to surgical and doctors for hospitalized patients and does not influence clinical decisions on medical aptitude for discharge. Instead, it can be used for the ball to surround in other logistics processes involved in the preparation of a patient to return home.
Bacchi and Dr. Joshua Kovor, main officer of the General Surgery House at Gold Coast and Health Service Hospital, developed the Adelaida score in collaboration with a multidisciplinary health team.
“If you need a wound care plan after your operation, or if you need rehabilitation reserve … someone has to do that,” Kovoor said Cosmos.
“And if that is not done, the moment when the consulting surgeon decides that the patient is fine to go home, then the patient will be delayed in the hospital.”
When a neighborhood bed is occupied for longer than necessary, a patient in the emergency department (DE) cannot be transferred, which prevents another patient from being admitted to the Emergency Department, increasing waiting times.
“It has been demonstrated again and again that adding many more beds generally does not solve this problem, because it simply fills that demand with the infinite demand for health services,” says Kovor.
“What really improves this problem is to take the resources that are already there and use them in the most strategic way possible.”
Reducing the duration of patient stays
In practice, the Adelaide score is used together with a second AI, the Rosetta system, by the interprofessional weekend support team (Swift).
Swift, composed of a main nurse with a wide knowledge of the hospital’s local functioning and a pharmacist, helps to facilitate downloads from Thursday to Sunday.
“Health is a 24/7 problem, but hospital systems have people, and inherently this means that there are staff differences during the night and on weekends,” says Bacchi.
“That means that weekend downloads can become a bottleneck, and there are less downloads on weekends.
“The way algorithms work is to mark patients to the Swift team, which could then help contact the medical team and facilitate their downloads.”
They discovered that although the intervention significantly decreased the duration of the patient’s stay in general, perhaps contraintuitive, increased slightly for downloads on weekends.
“We believe that the reason for that is the people who had been in the hospital for a while, which otherwise would not have been discharged until Monday, they were actually being discharged on weekends,” says Bacchi.
The Adelaida score also decreased the re -entry rate at 7 days, which may be due to a toughest high process before the patient leaves the hospital.
According to Kovor, the initial problem that leads a patient to the hospital is often not what makes them readmitted shortly after being discharged.
“Many times it will be something secondary to the thing that has definitely been treated, as if your pain has gone out of control, or your wound care plan, or cannot be taken care of at home,” says Kovor.
The team plans to test the approach again in the coming months to evaluate its effectiveness throughout the week.
Plans to expand
The Adelaide score is currently in use in another hospital in the northern suburbs, Modbury, in southern Australia, but Bacchi says they have plans to expand to others very soon.
“I think it is more likely to be operating at the Royal Adelaide and Queen Elizabeth [Hospitals] Before the end of the year, although there are a couple of steps that remain to be ordered, ”he says.
They are also under discussion with multiple hospitals in Victoria, Nueva Wales del Sur and Queensland.
“The line of timeline for them will vary according to some local factors,” says Bacchi. “But we are optimistic that … within 12 to 18 months, you could be executing interest.”
This will require a continuous evaluation, as well as the commitment to local experience, to identify how the AI system can be implemented safely and effectively in medical care environments that can work differently from where it was initially developed.
This includes plans to test the Adelaida score and other AI systems in the rural areas of Australia.
“We are passionate about evidence based on rural Australians equally to improve their medical care results,” says Bacchi.
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