TECHNOLOGY
completely accurate. Secondly, unless measures are being taken in the specific hospital, surgery or care home where the virus is present, containment is unlikely to be effective. Machine-led data collection and analysis is the only convincing way of predicting outcomes and responding to a pandemic.2
We need more organised,
real-time data about what is happening that gives decision makers actionable insights at the most local level possible. Symptom information, procedure audits, and workforce competency tracking are vital, but only useful if structured and communicated effectively.
Information is our weapon At Radar, we transform data into actionable insights. Safe environments exist where decision making is supported by real-time data about what’s happening. Clinicians and carers are more effective when outbreak workflows are automated, symptom information is communicated effectively and when hazards are digitally audited. At regional and national levels, a range of infection control methods are used such as syndromic surveillance, which includes monitoring Google searches to track symptoms and outbreaks in particular areas.3
These tools
are useful but usually suffer from a time delay that can hamper the response on the ground. Where we come in is in providing decision support tools to local healthcare environments, where patient management strategies can significantly impact outcome likelihoods and, consequently, the effectiveness on a larger scale. This local factor is well recognised as crucial by experts.4
Human beings are generally excellent decision makers. Poor decisions flow from poor information that is incomplete, inaccurate or, at worst, both. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often bounded about in an excitable way at conferences, exhibitions
data from which to learn. Though a lack of significant training data has hampered the use of AI in previous pandemics, it’s role in COVID-19 to complement human intelligence has been much more significant, demonstrating the vital role data collection plays.5
Used correctly, the ability to collect and analyse data and use those results to initiate interventions is extremely powerful. Imagine a situation where an outbreak occurs in a nearby care home. Decision support software identifies this and triggers automatic interventions, like flagging to staff a requirement to put a hold on visitors and increase resident monitoring. Decision makers can access relevant information, enabling them to react quickly and with confidence that they are taking evidence-based decisions.
By helping care homes, hospitals and other health settings identify the risk factors present in their workplace, and by setting out what should happen when an outbreak does occur, technology can save lives. Technology can help spot where infections are likely to spread by rapidly crunching the existing information about how it is spreading is something people simply can’t do with anywhere near the speed, accuracy or rigour. Harnessing this crucial capability is the difference between preventing an infection and letting it run rampant.
and in marketing materials by investment- seeking start-ups. Contrary to popular perception, it isn’t some dark art practiced by privacy-hating evil-doers, but rather mundanely involves using software to organise information, identify trends and spot interesting or important anomalies. To take over the world? No. To help clinicians make better decisions? We think so. To work effectively, AI requires training
The appeal of data on a national level is obvious – the Government can use it to enforce and lift lockdowns and to track and trace infections, but the benefits of infection data on an organisational level are sometimes less obvious. In the simplest terms, information about which patients are being hospitalised and which ones are showing symptoms and when, can help pinpoint risk factors and help identify control points. If this is done effectively on an organisational level, it can have a huge knock-on effect at a national level.
Thoughts on the future
It is fashionable to talk about a ‘new normal’ and declare how COVID-19 will forever change the way we approach public health. In some ways it will, and in many ways, things will remain the same. No doubt there will be macro-changes like an increase in budget for Public Health England, a commission or inquiry into how we could have responded better and a swathe of resignations.
But the battle against a virus isn’t fought in Whitehall. It is fought in the hospitals, surgeries and care homes across the country. It is fought by nurses, practice managers, doctors and carers. The battlefields are the handles, hugs and hands and we’ll need more than soap to win. We need information – it is there, we just need to start collecting and using it.
40 l
WWW.CLINICALSERVICESJOURNAL.COM NOVEMBER 2020
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
