Hospitals run like space missions will increase capacity and improve patient experience, writes GE Healthcare CEO Kieran Murphy in the Global Innovation Index 2019.
This article is part of a series about the power of innovation to solve social and economic challenges. Stories and statistics are drawn from the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index 2019.
A small but growing number of U.S. hospitals are run using NASA-style Command Centers, which harness data and artificial intelligence (AI) to manage issues with capacity, safety and quality.
Serving as ‘mission control’, the command center pulls in streams of data from multiple hospital systems. This data is analysed using simulation, algorithms and AI to generate predictive analytics that enable staff to understand what might happen in the next 24 to 48 hours and to react accordingly – with impressive results.
An early adopter
John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, was an early adopter of the Command Center. It worked with GE Healthcare Partners to design and build The Judy Reitz Capacity Command Center, along NASA command-center lines.
In a single room full of computer monitors, 24 hospital workers work together, equipped with real-time and predictive information that provides them with situational awareness. In a typical afternoon, the system receives about 500 messages per minute from 14 different Johns Hopkins IT systems, generating real-time data to prompt responses throughout the hospital.
The technology provides round-the-clock information about influxes of patients, suggesting which units need additional staff, how many patients are being treated, the availability of beds, the highest-priority admissions and discharges, and other essential information. Staff can then take action to prevent or resolve bottlenecks, reducing patient waiting times and risk.
Impressive results
Since implementing the Command Center, efficiency at John Hopkins Hospital has risen sharply across the board. In the emergency department, a patient is assigned to a bed 30 percent faster after admittance. Transfer delays from the operating room after a procedure have been reduced by 70 percent, and 21 percent more patients are now discharged before noon. Patients are now transferred to other hospitals 60% faster, wait times in the Emergency Department are down by 25%, and time spent waiting in the operating room for a post-surgical bed has reduced by 70%.
Industry experts believe that this type of digitization is just the beginning. Deloitte’s Center for Health Solutions report says that centralized digital centers that enable decision-making will be one of the major changes the hospital of the future must implement to function in a world of evolving technologies, demographic shifts, and economic changes.
The Global Innovation Index 2019 is the result of a collaboration between Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as co-publishers, and their Knowledge Partners, Confederation of Indian Industry, Dassault Systèmes, SEBRAE, Brazilian Micro and Small Industry Support Services, and Brazilian Confederation of Industry.
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