A Kent hospital is the first NHS trust in the country to use a potentially life-saving artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can help clinicians identify infections at an early stage.
East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust (EKHUFT) is using AI at Kent and Canterbury Hospital to analyse clinical information such as blood tests, blood pressure and temperature to generate an individual infection risk level for each patient.
The software, called MEMORI, is part of a collaboration between the trust and Sanome, a UK health technology company.
Ward manager Julie Jones said it created time to “actually be with our patients, to spend time to care for our patients, rather than having to trawl through notes”.
The NHS 10-year plan sets out an ambition to move from analogue to digital and supports the use of more AI tools such as MEMORI, which is fully licensed as a healthcare device.
It analyses routine clinical information already included in patient records, including observations, medications, and demographics, to generate an infection risk level.
Staff in east Kent, including nurses, healthcare assistants, consultants and therapists, worked on its development to ensure it supported real clinical practice.
“It comes up with a score, a memory score, which is going to indicate whether a patient’s at risk of developing an infection before we actually see an infection develop,” Jones said.
Asked if it was likely to replace staff, she said: “It absolutely is not. It’s just about supporting.
“It’s going to be a win-win situation. It’s going to be good for the patient, good for their rehab, good for bed flow for the whole hospital. So it can only be positive.”