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Program to reduce patient stays in Emergency Department wins 31st Pitch
The program will use AI to improve wait times for patients getting CT Brain Scans.
Congratulations to Dr Hassan Ahmad, Emergency Medicine Provisional Fellow at RPA and RPA Hospital’s Green Light Institute for Emergency Care, winner of the 31st round of Sydney Local Health District’s Pitch innovation challenge.
The Pitch invites staff from across hospitals and services to share their ideas to improve patient experience and clinical outcomes. The program started in August 2014 and since then more than $2 million has been given to successful applicants, helping them to bring their innovative ideas to life.
The pitch by Dr Ahmad and the RPA Greenlight Institute for Emergency Care was titled ‘Improving the Care of Head Injuries and Concussion using Research in Artificial Intelligence Systems for Emergency Department-CT Brain Scans (RAISED-CTB)’.
RPA’s Green Light Institute facilitates and coordinates research to improve outcomes for emergency patients across Australia.
The institute’s pitch impressed the judges as an innovative approach to helping Emergency Department doctors get more low-risk patients with normal scans home sooner.
“Rather than waiting hours for formal reports, Emergency Department clinicians, with the help of AI software can look at (CT) scans themselves and eligible low risk patients can be discharged, allowing them to go home,” he said.
“The program will put Sydney Local Health District at the forefront of medical research and integration.”
The program will be a collaboration between RPA Emergency Department, Radiology, Neurosciences and Virtual Care and the District’s Digital Health and Innovation team.
The program will also establish a partnership with RPA Virtual Hospital to follow up patients when they get home.
“What that means for patients is that they’ll have less time sitting around in Emergency. They can get home to their families more quickly and have better outcomes and care for concussion and traumatic brain injuries, which means less time staying overnight,” he said.
“For patients getting CT scans at the moment, only 20% of them are being discharged within the appropriate timeframe. With this intervention we could double that to 40%.”
The Green Light Institute will receive the $50,000 prize money, which will go towards realising the project. This money will cover technology and implementation costs for the first stage of delivery.
The judges were also able to support other ideas from across the District through alternative means.
“Everything’s supported but just in a different pathway,” said Deb Willcox AM, District Chief Executive.
Dr Dona Cho, Senior Resident Medical Officer General Medicine, RPA, and Dr Daniel Simpkins, Staff Specialist Geriatric Medicine, Balmain Hospital, received the go-ahead on their request for patients with hearing impairment to be supported with portable hearing loops through Balmain Hospital administration.
Dr Lauren Troy, Senior Staff Specialist Respiratory and Sleep Medicine, RPA, and her team received similar support from David Norwood, acting District Chief Information Officer and Director of Digital Health, to take their pitch offline and progress it through industry partnerships. Their project “LINGULA-Tube” will reduce language barriers that add to fear and negative experiences of lung cancer.
Melanie Ireland, Health Promotion Manager, BreastScreen NSW, will have her idea to increase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cancer screening rates implemented immediately as part of the District’s current service offering.
“We believe breast cancer screening for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be embedded in part of the services we provide, and we would like to support that happening. I think we really need to ramp that up,” said Deb.
The team from Youth Block, the District’s hub for youth services, also received an invitation to develop their idea to increase youth participation and patient engagement in vaping cessation further in the new year.
The judging panel included Deb Willcox AM; David Norwood; Associate Professor Sean Riminton, Head of Department of Immunology at Concord Hospital; Dianna Jagers, General Manager of Community Services; and Lyn White, consumer representative and Balmain Hospital Consumer Advisory committee member.