Incubating new AI ideas in Cheshire and Merseyside to improve health care delivery

C2-Ai and Health Innovation NWC’s collaboration with Cheshire and Merseyside ICB continues to grow from strength to strength.

How it started

The collaboration began several years ago with using AI data tools to undertake clinical audit and quality improvement analyses.

During Covid the tools were applied to “help people wait” for elective surgeries when the number of people waiting started to reach new records.

The result was the Patient Tracking List (PTL) triage system, which helps identify individuals waiting for surgery who may deteriorate more quickly. It enables surgical teams to prioritise people, take steps to reduce these risks, or to prepare expert treatment if these risks happen.

Cheshire and Merseyside (C&M) implemented PTL across the whole ICB, and the results have been very positive. Independently-verified evidence shows that >1 excess bed day is saved per patient, including 8 per cent reduction in A&E attendances, 54 per cent reduction in avoidable harm, 35 per cent conversion to day case, 27 per cent reduction in waiting list in first 6 months of deployment and >60 mins of consultant surgeon administrative time saved per patient per year.

Health Innovation NWC has brokered all regional connections to give C2-Ai the right opportunities to expand the use of their products and their business as a whole. Health Innovation NWC even funded a real-world evaluation of the PTL triage system so C2-Ai could prove the value of the innovation and scale it up outside of Cheshire and Merseyside. Health Innovation NWC is now brokering connections for C2-Ai to bring the system into 5 other regions.

And it's working! PTL has now been adopted by 20 individual trusts and one other ICBs across England.

Because of all the hard groundwork done in Cheshire and Merseyside, C2-Ai can offer a “GIRFT” (getting it right the first time) solution to trusts and ICBs, including SOPs (standard operating procedures) and governance templates, best practices and clear implementation roadmaps. It has allowed them to essentially sell an out of the box product to busy surgical teams.

What’s next

C2-Ai, Health Innovation NWC and C&M ICB’s collaboration has been so successful that C2-Ai’s business strategy is to continue to incubate new ideas in Cheshire and Merseyside, and bring them to the rest of the NHS once they have matured.

Mark Ratnarajah, Managing Director at C2-Ai, said: “Health Innovation North West Coast and Cheshire and Merseyside ICB have been so supportive of innovation and embracing collaboration. We want to replicate what we do here and scale that in support of other ICBs. Start small, prove your case, then you can move to other areas of need using the same rigor and methodology. Data is a small cog in the whole thing. It’s really about targeting the information and providing actionable insights to clinicians so that they can do something about it. This way we can help the health system create pathways that are much more responsive to the individual need of the patients.”

C2-Ai is now working with some of the north west’s health experts on using data to improve maternity and neonatal safety, addressing the “waiting well agenda” and prehabilitation for chronic disease management. This is where they use data to empower patients by providing a wrap-around pathway to optimise their own health and give them better access to health care. Along the way they may happen to be having surgery, but it isn’t all about the surgery itself. The benefits to the health system would be many, including reducing pressure on A&E.

For more information on how you can do business with the NHS, contact us.

---

C2-Ai in the news

• Kings Fund: In November 2023, C2-Ai contributed to a publication: Tackling health inequalities on NHS waiting lists; and a podcast: Elective care waiting lists: are they fair?
• NHS Confederation/Health Innovation Network Innovate Awards 2023: C2-Ai and Cheshire and Merseyside ICB won both "Best Use of Data in Health Innovation" and the overall winner-of-winners "Innovation Champion of the Year" at the Innovate Awards on 23 September 2023 for its collaboration in the development of the PTL triage system.
• Gartner: Eye on Innovation in Healthcare and Life Sciences Awards 2023: C2-Ai and its work with Cheshire and Merseyside ICB was voted as a finalist in the Provider category.