Alder Hey Children´s NHS Foundation Trust has reported a multi-year collaborative program with the Science and Technology Facilities Council´s (STFC) Hartree Centre, supported by IBM (NYSE: IBM), to create the United Kingdom´s first cognitive hospital by harnessing big data and IBM´s Watson technology platform, the company said.
This is the first time that Watson technology will be applied to improve patient experience in the United Kingdom. Alder Hey and the Hartree Centre believe that by applying Watson computing technology, it will enhance patient care and potentially generate savings for both the hospital and the UK National Health Service (NHS) as a whole.
Using Watson to analyze any feedback that is voluntarily and securely provided by the patients, with appropriate consent as needed, it is anticipated that Alder Hey will be able to greatly enhance the patient experience.
The first stage of this multi-year project is underway, with an initial version of the platform expected to be ready for testing in the hospital around the end of the year. Experts from the Hartree Cognitive team will use this information to train Watson to anticipate and respond to questions from patients and families before they come into hospital.
Using this data, Watson will provide cognitive analytics that deliver insights enabling the hospital to think, sense and feel what is happening within it. Patients and their families at Alder Hey will be able to access this pre-admission to hospital through a digital application on a tablet or smartphone, such as a mobile app. The app is being developed in parallel to the cognitive hospital, using funds raised by Alder Hey Children´s Charity.
This project with the Hartree Centre, which is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), and based at Sci-Tech Daresbury in Cheshire, is backed by a BPS115.5 million commitment from government announced in 2015 and is a joint collaboration with IBM to help UK industry achieve competitive advantage and to benefit from the latest cognitive computing technologies.
Alder Hey Children´s NHS Foundation Trust provides care for over 275,000 children and young people every year. Alder Hey delivers clinical excellence for all children, for routine illnesses as well as very complex and rare conditions. One of four standalone children´s hospitals in the UK, it is a national center for neuro and craniofacial surgery, a regional center for burns injuries and a Centre of Excellence for children with cancer, heart, spinal and brain disease.
IBM Watson Health is a cognitive computing capability delivered through the cloud, which analyzes high volumes of data, understands complex questions posed in natural language, and proposes evidence-based answers.
STFC Hartree Centre is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, and located at Sci-Tech Daresbury in Cheshire, the Hartree Centre accelerates the application of high performance computing, data science, big data analytics and cognitive techniques into industry.
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