Article by Hannah Devlin: “Hospitals in England are using artificial intelligence to help cut waiting times in emergency departments this winter.
The A&E forecasting tool predicts when demand will be highest, allowing trusts to better plan staffing and bed space. The prediction algorithm is trained on historical data including weather trends, school holidays, and rates of flu and Covid to determine how many people are likely to visit A&E.
The government said the technology allowed healthcare staff “to do the things that they’re trained to do, rather than having to be bound down by bureaucratic processes”.
Ian Murray, the minister for digital government and data, said: “The front door of the NHS is the A&E department. You’ve no idea how many people will come through the door, although you can have some analytical evidence that Saturday nights might be busier than a Tuesday night, for example, and the winter might be busier than the summer, unless you have a heatwave, of course…(More)”.
