UCLH enters a new era as a Research Hospital

UCLH has announced a partnership with the Alan Turing Institute in a bid to converge healthcare and data science which could revolutionise the NHS.

Staff from UCL will be working with the analytical and computing expertise from the Alan Turing Institute to find out how patient data can be used more effectively.

UCLH claim that this collaboration will put them at the forefront of the NHS in harnessing the power of data science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support clinical decision making and make services safer, quicker and more efficient according to Professor Bryan Williams.

Healthcare and the demands upon it are rapidly changing and AI could help to ensure that the Trust operates more efficiently. Professor Bryan Williams, Director of Research at UCLH and NIHR UCLH BRC Director said: “The partnership has the potential to tackle some of the big issues that the NHS has never been able to solve”.

Using data routinely collected by the NHS and analysing it can help to develop research and the way in which the hospital operates.

AI will first be implemented in the Accident and Emergency department in order to reduce waiting times and ensure that there is a smooth flow of patients in and out of the hospital.

Also Dr Parashkev Nachev, a NIHR-funded researcher, has developed an AI programme, which is able to understand which patients will attend or miss outpatient clinics and MRI scans. This will allow staff to offer appointments that suit the individual’s needs.

UCLH will continue to keep patient information secure and private. Data will be anonymised before processing and will only be identifiable for the purposes relevant to individual patient care.

AI is the ability of a computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks normally associated with intelligent beings, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalise or learn from past experiences. AI is based on the development of computer algorithms that follow a series of instructions to perform a calculation or solve a problem.