A new command centre armed with a “real-time” data dashboard could cut patients’ discharge time at a leading Hong Kong hospital by a third and prove instrumental in the city’s effort to avert overloading the healthcare system during a resurgent fifth coronavirus wave, medical chiefs have said.

The system at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which is part of a reform initiative to modernise and digitalise, could also predict “potential risks of deterioration” for inpatients using artificial intelligence.

“We faced a sudden and unprecedented challenge during the fifth Covid-19 wave with a sharp surge in patients. The system allows us to have a real-time grasp of data,” said Dr Calvin Mak, coordinator for information technology and system in the Hospital Authority’s Kowloon Central cluster.

“The most important thing in this pandemic fight is to have clear and accurate data for the purpose of resource allocation. With just one look at the dashboard, you can see everything from usage to availability,” Mak, who is also a neurosurgeon at Queen Elizabeth, added.

Queen Elizabeth, on March 9, became the first major hospital in the city to be converted into a designated Covid-19 institution, which required an urgent transfer of its non-coronavirus patient load to other hospitals within days to free up its beds for infected patients in severe condition.

Since May 20, with the easing of the coronavirus wave, Queen Elizabeth once again resumed normal operations. But management of admissions became a major talking point after city leader John Lee Ka-chiu warned earlier this week that Covid-19 could take up one-fourth of local public health resources by the end of this month, amid a rebound of the epidemic.

A command centre with real-time knowledge of bed occupancy rates in normal and isolation wards, the average length of stay of inpatients, and the daily number of new admissions and discharges could make all the difference in speeding up patient turnover and achieving resource optimisation, Mak said.

Citing experience in February and March when local coronavirus infections reached an all-time high, Queen Elizabeth’s central nursing division operations manager Jenny Ngai said the target of patients being discharged before 1pm was previously reached in about 40% of cases, and it had now increased to 55%, thereby shortening average discharge time by a third.

The dashboard also replaced the old practice of making multiple phone calls to various wards to match available beds to patients. Ngai said that saved up to 4,200 minutes in those critical months as a total of 2,100 cases were spared an estimated two minutes of calls.

Mak also said better health outcomes were achieved as the input of data into the AI-powered dashboard, which is part of the “smart hospital” initiative, also contributed to an efficient analysis and early spotting of medical issues in patients.

If a patient’s blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels or other vital signs deteriorated their tab would turn red, and as a result, doctors could make an early visit, prioritise their treatments and save lives, he said.

According to the hospital, various metrics improved since the introduction of the system, including a 65% drop in admission to intensive care units, a 29% fall in length of hospital stay, and a 250% increase in the number of patients being seen.

“The system is like a web-based backbone of the hospital, simple to use and could be mastered by colleagues with just one briefing session,” said Anthony Lui, the cluster’s general manager in administrative services.

The Post understands that the Hospital Authority would consider rolling out similar measures in other institutions citywide in the future.

 - SCMP