In health care, we plan for the unexpected. However, having the right number of staff working at the right time is a complex equation. When the ratio isn’t right, patients wait for care, which is stressful for them and the health professionals caring for them.
To better match physician coverage with patient demand, Fraser Health is partnering with Deloitte Canada to develop a physician scheduling tool that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning solutions to accurately forecast the waves in demand we see in the health system. Having this intelligence is expected to improve the patient experience and reduce physician workloads.
The project is in the initial stages and is funded by a $1.5 million Scale AI award.
“We envision a tool that will bring in clinical profiles, along with seasonal events such as respiratory and influenza season, and perhaps even weather data, to more accurately predict how many patients will need care on any given day and match that demand with physician coverage,” says Sheazin Premji, Executive Director, Centre for Advanced Analytics, Data Science, and Innovation, Fraser Health.
The funding from Scale AI will allow the Fraser Health and Deloitte project team to develop three artificial intelligence models: two that leverage patient analytics from various electronic medical records to forecast volume demands coming to the emergency and medicine departments and assist leadership in pre-determining broader staffing requirements; and a third that takes the forecasted patient data and matches it with business rules, such as patient-physician ratios, to create a baseline schedule with advanced analytic capabilities to generate multiple scheduling scenarios.
“Fraser Health is undergoing a digital transformation to better serve patients,” says Jennifer MacGregor, Vice President of Digital Patient & Provider Experience. “We are grateful to ScaleAI for recognizing the value of partnering health care organizations with industry to find innovative solutions to everyday challenges.”
The Fraser Health/Deloitte collaboration ‘AI-Driven Physician Scheduling Solution and Workflow Optimization’ is one of nine Canadian health projects to receive $21 million in funding to pioneer the deployment of AI solutions. The initiative promotes collaboration between hospitals and AI product and solutions providers to innovate further and accelerate the deployment of AI in Canadian health care.