Amsterdam's OLVG Hospital adopts AI decision support for safer ICU discharges
As of this week, OLVG Hospital in Amsterdam has implemented artificial intelligence (AI) assistance to help determine whether a patient can be discharged from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Developed by Pacmed, the software will be implemented in a total of seven hospitals across the Netherlands.
The probability of a patient being readmitted to the ICU or dying after discharge is important when considering whether the patient can be released to the nursing ward safely. With additional support from artificial intelligence, doctors in the OLVG will benefit from additional information to make this decision optimally.
The addition of AI will contribute to preventing readmissions, unnecessarily long patient stays and optimise the usage of the ICU capacity. This approach will also be introduced into the Maasstad hospital in Rotterdam as well as five other Santeon hospitals.
Pacmed software takes a leap from research to implementation
The software was developed by Pacmed, a medical AI company from Amsterdam. While the deployment of the AI decision support first took place at Amsterdam UMC last year in a research setting, this is the first time the product will be rolled out for use by customers in multiple hospitals. According to Wouter Kroese, co-founder of Pacmed, this implementation heralds the arrival of sustainable solutions for major personnel challenges in healthcare.
Increased demand for healthcare calls for modern technological solutions
To address the challenges of growing demand, rising costs, and a shortage of personnel in the healthcare sector, digitisation and data-driven technology play a crucial role. The collaboration between health insurers, Pacmed, and the Santeon hospitals includes the implementation of Pacmed Critical in the seven hospitals and focuses on enhancing the accessibility and responsible utilisation of AI decision support.
Pioneering innovation in the healthcare sector in the Amsterdam Area and beyond
The Netherlands leads the way in data-driven ICU care, with highly digitised Dutch ICUs utilising digital Electronic Health Records for several years, alongside initiatives such as NICE, COVIDpredict, and ICUdata. Home to OLVG Lab, which is positioned to be the first in Europe to use autonomous blood drawing robots, Amsterdam was also chosen to host the major healthcare HLTH conference. AI continues to be a major area of growth in the industry as it is being utilised in the University of Amsterdam and Netherlands Cancer Institute developments in cancer treatments.
