- Command centre utilises AI to help Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust transform care delivery in response to growing patient numbers
- Trust aims to cut waiting times, treat more patients, improve their experience, and reduce pressure on staff
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is collaborating with GE Healthcare to build a command centre at the Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI).
A first of its kind in Europe, the command centre – similar to an air traffic control centre – will transform how care is delivered and organised as the number of patients at the hospital continues to increase.
Utilising artificial intelligence (AI), it will provide a clear, instant, and real-time overview across the 800-bed hospital and help staff make quick and informed decisions on how to best manage patient care.
Command centres help 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 trust staff based in the command centre will monitor a ‘wall of analytics’ that constantly pulls in streams of real-time data from the multiple systems at the hospital.
Advanced algorithms will help staff to anticipate and resolve bottlenecks in care delivery before they occur, recommending actions to enable faster, more-responsive patient care and better allocation of resources.
The data will be displayed on multiple high-definition screens in the centre, as well as on tablets and mobile devices, providing 24-7 support to busy medical teams across the hospital.
The centre will be located centrally in a refurbished space at the BRI site and will help to reduce unnecessary time spent in hospital after a patient is medically ready to leave; increase the proportion of patients who arrive and are admitted, transferred or discharged from A&E within four hours; and help ensure that patients are always treated in the wards best suited to manage their care.
Over 96% of bed capacity at BRI is used regularly and it has 125,000 emergency department (A&E) attendances each year, up by more than 40% over the past decade.
The command centre programme helps meet the vision to decrease length of stay, alleviate the need for additional wards, and beds – especially during peak winter times – and reduce cancellations for non-emergency surgery.
“Demand for services is growing every year" said Professor Clive Kay, trust chief executive.
"The command centre will enable us to optimise our use of resources and improve how we move patients around the hospital for treatment and successful discharge.
ospitals are increasingly looking to boost the efficiency of their operations so they can continue to deliver high quality care as patient volume increases
“Around 350-400 patients come through our A&E every day, and relieving pressure on our 6,000 staff means they can spend more time delivering care, and less time organising care."
Mark Ebbens, European command centre lead at GE Healthcare, added: “Hospitals are increasingly looking to boost the efficiency of their operations so they can continue to deliver high quality care as patient volume increases.
“Command centres help to orchestrate the delivery of care across the organisation, bringing consistency to processes, prioritising actions, eliminating waste, and predicting tomorrow’s pressure points.”
Command Centres have been adopted by several hospitals in North America, including The Johns Hopkins Hospital, a major not-for-profit 1,100 bed hospital in Baltimore, US.
Since it began operating, patients from other hospitals are transferred 60% faster, emergency room wait times have been cut by 25%, and time spent waiting in the operating theatre for a post-surgical bed decreased by 70%.
Bradford’s command centre will open in spring next year.