Flagler Hospital tackles clinical variation

At HiMSS19, Michael Sanders, FAAFP, MD, chief medical and informatics officer of Flagler Hospital, led a session on the hospital’s progress in tackling clinical variation with artificial intelligence (AI).

Applying Ayasdi's Artificial Intelligence (AI)-poweredClinical Variation Management (CVM) software application to pneumonia, FlaglerHospital saved an average of $1,350 per case, reduced the average length ofstay by two days and reduced readmissions by seven times – eliminating nearly$850,000 in unnecessary costs.

Flagler Hospital, drawing data from its electronic medicalrecord (EMR) and using the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources standard,tapped into unsupervised learning capabilities with CVM to understand theoptimal events, sequence and timing of care. These results were presented tophysician teams via an intuitive interface that allowed them to understandexactly why each step (and the timing of the step) was recommended. Final carepaths were deployed as new order sets to the EMR.

The intelligent application has also been applied to sepsisand will be used with 18 other conditions in the coming months.

"Our ability to rapidly construct clinical pathwaysbased on our own data and measure adherence by our staff to those standardsprovides us with the opportunity to deliver better care at a lower cost to ourpatients. Given the complexity of the challenge, using AI to solve this problemis the right approach, and Ayasdi's CVM application makes it accessible to ourpractitioners, a key part of the value proposition given Flagler does not havededicated data science resources,” said Sanders.