A joint project with Anglia Ruskin University to see how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning can improve the way we extract patient data to drive better patient safety and outcomes, has been rated as Outstanding by Innovate UK, the UK’s national innovations agency.
The project, which began in February 2019, was funded as a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) by Innovate UK. The KTP brought together our clinical and tech experts with academics from the University. Our colleagues included: Amirali Shirazibeheshti, Dr Tarek Radwan, Dr Alireza Ettefaghian and Hasib Aftab.
This is the second KTP fund we have received from Innovate UK, and the second to be rated as ‘Outstanding’. The first fund was in 2015, leading to the development of our in-house data-management tool EZ Analytics, known internally as EZA. This second project added an AI element to EZA.
The team deployed an AI module in EZA, focusing on a target group of patients, in this case older people prescribed anticholinergic drugs. This module optimised the identification of patients in this group with significant risk-factors, supporting our clinical teams to de-prescribe where appropriate. Extracting the data in a way that individuals or existing searches could not do, this new AI-driven approach will reduce the risk of serious illness or death.