The Operating Theatre Journal - Flipbook - Page 10
UK AI receives widespread recognition for NHS waiting list impact
NHS technology provider C2-Ai has been
recognised at four high-profile UK healthcare
and technology awards on a single night, after
surgical teams across dozens of hospitals
delivered significant impact for patients on
waiting lists.
Surgeons say they are revolutionising how NHS
waiting lists are managed with the help of the
UK company’s technology, which is providing
staff with an unprecedented understanding of
the risks facing every individual patient.
Designed in response to requests from NHS
professionals, the system provides augmented
intelligence to help busy staff, hospitals and
integrated care systems make important
decisions, allowing them to prioritise patients
for procedures, according to real-time
changing clinical needs.
Peri-surgical teams have also used the
technology to identify previously hidden
high-risk patients and provide them with
personalised relevant support before and
after surgery, to prevent them deteriorating
as they wait for hospital treatment, with
notable reductions in complications recorded.
With strong evidence of positive impact in
helping NHS organisations clear the backlog
more quickly and reduce other pressures, the
system was recognised at multiple awards in
June. This included:
• Health Service Journal Digital Awards – won
by integrated care system NHS Cheshire
and Merseyside and C2-Ai. Awarded for the
supporting elective recovery through digital
category in HSJ’s first ever digital awards,
which celebrate excellence in the sector.
Clinicians at NHS Cheshire and Merseyside
played a key role in the development of the
predictive waiting list model, applied to the
C2-Ai system.
• AbilityNet Tech4Good awards – won by
C2-Ai in the AI For Good category - which
celebrate organisations that use digital
technology to improve lives and enhance
the world.
• Digital Leaders 100 – the company was
named for a second year on the Digital
Leaders DL100 list, which celebrates teams
and individuals delivering achievements
in UK digital transformation. C2-Ai was
also highly commended in the AI and Data
Initiative of the Year category.
• The North West Coast Research and
Innovation Awards – C2-Ai chief medical
officer Graham Copeland was named as a
finalist in the NHS Unsung Hero category
for the awards, hosted by the Academic
Health Science Network for the North West
Coast. The company was also shortlisted for
the Patient Safety and Care Improvement
Award.
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The AI system, which has been built on data
from more than 450 million records, works by
analysing data held in multiple care settings to
provide clinicians with an accurate and realtime understanding of the evolving individual
risks facing their patients, and what will
happen if specific action is not taken.
“The surgical and clinical teams who have
embraced and acted on this new intelligence
on the risks facing their patients, fully deserve
the recognition of the accomplishments for
patient care, and new thinking in healthcare
service design, that these awards represent.
This really is technology for good.”
Surgeons, who have saved many thousands of
hours in prioritising waiting lists, or around
five minutes for each triage, have been highly
positive about time released to focus their
time on carrying out more procedures, and
about the reliability, credibility and clinical
effectiveness of the decision support system.
Use of the C2-Ai RiskTriage system has seen
significant attention elsewhere, which
has supported uptake in around a third of
England’s ICS regions. In addition to June’s
awards, the system has received many other
industry awards during the past two years.
An NHS England analysis of Cheshire and
Merseyside’s use of C2-Ai, a region which
now triages 250,000 each week through the
system, revealed a 66% reduction in the need
for ICU for the highest risk patients, 125 beddays saved per 1,000 patients, and an 8%
reduction in emergency admissions. The same
study also saw reductions in avoidable harm
and mortality, and a 27% reduction in longwaiters within six weeks of deployment.
Additionally, the first patient cohort to benefit
from targeted prehabilitation triggered by the
system’s identification of risk, saw more than
a 70% reduction in surgical complications, an
average five-day reduction in length of stay,
and zero post operative deaths.
Dr Mark Ratnarajah, UK managing director
for the company, and a practising NHS
paediatrician for more than 25 years, said:
“NHS organisations have been seeking new
intelligence to better manage the complexities
of growing waiting lists, rising demand, and
supply challenges. We are proud to work in
close collaboration with genuinely pioneering
clinicians, who have driven us to develop the
tools needed to help address some of the
most pressing and pervasive operational and
clinical challenges the NHS has ever faced, as
it turns 75 years old.
THE OPERATING THEATRE JOURNAL
High levels of accuracy in predicting risk of
mortality and complications for patients, has
been the subject of multiple peer reviewed
studies on the system. It has been best
practice endorsed by the Getting it Right First
Time (GIRFT) initiative.
The Royal College of Surgeons of England has
funded a detailed economic health analysis.
And additional awareness will soon be created
after an acceptance to present on the system
at the World Congress of Prehabilitation
Medicine in London in July.
Steve Barnett, executive vice president for
C2-Ai, which is headquartered in Cambridge,
said: “I’ve worked with cutting edge
technology companies for more than four
decades, but I’ve never seen such a focussed
team delivering such results and recognition.
As a life-long technologist, it is immensely
rewarding to see such positive impact from
a genuinely unique system that is generating
a new kind of intelligence on a scale and
accuracy that the NHS has never before had
access to. As a positive response to some of
the challenges created by the pandemic, I
hope that the awards raise awareness so that
we can scale this opportunity even further –
both in the NHS and around the world.”
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