52H - AI-Powered Operational Management: Unlocking Scarce Capacity and Delivering Strong ROI

Tuesday, March 21

2:00–3:00 p.m.

The foundational math of capacity management—matching supply with demand—is broken. Existing tools and processes need to be fundamentally revamped for health systems to overcome waves of COVID-19 and similar shocks in the future to maximize use of their assets and create value for patients and themselves.

AI has created clear value across service industries—you wouldn’t be able to get a rideshare or flight without it. But for hospitals and health systems, AI is still often viewed as a buzzword beyond clinical applications such as drug discovery and medical imaging. However, AI technology is already creating value in health systems’ daily operations, helping better utilize scarce resources such as operating rooms, infusion chairs and inpatient beds. The key to successfully transforming your hospital’s operations is to leverage these scalable, AI-driven, intelligent, virtual and distributed systems.

What are the results of leveraging AI to improve hospital operations? The ability to perform 24 more cases per OR per year during prime time hours, reducing inpatient time-to-place by 16% at the height of COVID-19 and slashing infusion patient wait times by 30%.

Learning Objectives

• Identify the current challenges of capacity management—the underlying math to match supply with demand—for health systems to maximize the use of hospital assets.
• Describe how health systems use AI to improve census predictions and make real-time decisions about OR capacity, patient placement, staffing, diversion prevention and more.