With over 47,000 nursing vacancies across the NHS, the pressure on existing staff is rising day by day.
With less staff support and higher patient volumes in most hospitals, nurses are often overwhelmed by non-clinical tasks, which reduces the time they can spend on vital patient care.
AI allows for the chaining together of multiple tasks
However, AI can offer support to help tackle this, allowing nurses to focus more on their care responsibilities. Integrating innovative AI-based technology into existing systems like nurse calls, staff duress, asset location, and Electronic Health Records (EHRs) make processes more efficient by connecting faster to the right staff with the right skills at the right time.
In addition, AI allows for the chaining together of multiple tasks. AI-driven systems can enhance efficiency within hospitals, enabling nurses to devote more time to what they do best; caring for patients.
The burden of non-clinical tasks
From the delivery and retrieval of food trays to transporting patients and planning ancillary services, nurses are becoming more tied down with non-clinical tasks over providing dedicated care.
The increase in the need to perform such activities has several detrimental side effects. For nurses themselves, it can reduce their productivity and effectiveness, drive burnout, and make them less satisfied with their work and jobs. In some cases, this can lead to them leaving the profession altogether.
AI-driven systems can enhance efficiency within hospitals, enabling nurses to devote more time to what they do best; caring for patients
These effects have a subsequent impact on patient care. There’s a greater chance that the overall quality of care decreases, contributing to less satisfied patients, dangerous health outcomes, and higher mortality rates.
Meanwhile, the distraction of other non-clinical tasks can mean nurses miss care tasks for patients. All of this means the hospital has to deal with increased operational and healthcare costs, further impacting its ability to invest in improving
efficiency and care.
AI-powered task allocation
By delivering the right person to the right location at the right time, the amount of non-clinical tasks performed by nurses can be massively reduced.
Nurse call systems, for example, allow patients to notify nurses when they need assistance. The nurse station will have a control panel that shows when calls are coming in, from what location, and if there are any specific patient needs.
The use of AI in hospital systems opens up many possibilities
But the task of prioritising what calls are most urgent alongside finding the right staff to attend to such tasks, especially when they could all be on different tasks in different locations, can be complex and time-consuming. However, this non-clinical burden can be significantly eased with AI.
The use of AI in hospital systems opens up many possibilities. It can facilitate integration between systems such as nurse calls and EHRs to create real-time visibility of patient data. Then, where it really shines is in its ability to analyse all of the various data points to allocate tasks.
The AI-based system can automatically prioritise calls based on patient needs and then assess data like staff availability, skills, and real-time location to assign nurses or non-clinical staff most suited for the task. After this, it can create a chain of tasks, with staff marking each task as completed in the system when finished and automatically knowing where and when they need to be next.
Benefits across the board
The utilisation of AI in such ways can produce broader benefits across the board, particularly in enhancing operational efficiency, staff satisfaction and patient care. Managers can access real-time data that allows them to identify issues in care flow and outline better ways to optimise task patterns.
If nurses have more time to provide dedicated care and spend less time on non-clinical tasks, not only will hospital productivity improve but also job satisfaction and patient outcomes.
With this understanding, they can implement strategies to enhance staff workflows and reduce overall response times, contributing to overall operational efficiency and bettering the patient experience. With AI, this process can happen very quickly.
Moreover, if nurses have more time to provide dedicated care and spend less time on non-clinical tasks, not only will hospital productivity improve but also job satisfaction and patient outcomes. This can help tackle even wider issues such as staff retention and surging healthcare and operational costs.
A(I) time to care
Despite thousands of nursing vacancies, Lord Darzi’s recent and candid report into the state of the NHS also revealed that it has “more resources than ever before”. What it shows is that despite the NHS having its highest levels of staff and budget, productivity has dropped.
One reason for this is the time nurses have to spend on non-clinical tasks. This adds a massive burden to their work and reduces the time they spend on care, affecting their effectiveness, job satisfaction, and the patient experience. Integrating AI into existing operating systems is a highly effective way of reducing this burden and seamlessly allocating
tasks to the right person far faster and more accurately than currently possible.
While other issues such as staff pay, working conditions and hospital facilities need to be overcome, AI has a crucial role to play in enhancing overall productivity and giving nurses vital time back to do what they do best – caring for patients.