Machine Learning in Hospitals: Easing Wait Times in the ER

Like many emergency rooms in the United Kingdom, the A&E department at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, Greater Manchester, faces high congestion. The Data Science team at the Northern Care Alliance (NCA) National Health Service (NHS) Group of hospitals is implementing support mechanisms to ease wait times, using machine learning and regression to better predict peak demand times and improve the flow of patients from intake to discharge. I recently spoke with Karim Webb, Data Science Manager and Robyn Hamilton, Data Scientist at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group, regarding some exciting developments with the use of data science to ease wait times, support clinicians and provide better patient experiences at the hospital. Karim believes that his team is on the leading edge of this discipline within the UK healthcare economy. However, one of the biggest challenges the team faces is that, "… data science is still a relatively new discipline…so finding stakeholder engagement to drive it forward is a challenge."