COVENTRY’S NHS Trust has become the first healthcare provider in Europe to use an advanced form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help improve patient care.
The groundbreaking trial saw University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust conduct ‘process mining’ which allowed them to understand the performance of their processes and find areas of improvement.
The Trust received NHS England funding to use the software for eight weeks to see if it could cut the ‘did not attend’ rate of patients who miss appointments.
Health chiefs discovered the AI reduced the number from 10 to four per cent.
After the success of the trial, UHCW will be helping to roll out the technique to other NHS Trusts across the country over the next year.
Dan Hayes, Director of Performance and Informatics, said: “We found texting people 14 days before the appointment was most impactful.
“This meant they could cancel earlier and we had the opportunity to re-
book the appointment.
“By making a slight adjustment we massively improved performance.
“The AI gives us a far bigger picture of our patient demographics, rather than just booking chronologically.
“We now have funding to use process mining for theatres to see what we can do with processes there, but we still have lots more to go at.”
