Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH) has gone live this month with the AI scribing tool TORTUS across outpatient services, with the aim to “enhance patient care through digital innovation” and support clinicians with documentation.
GOSH introduced the AI scribe after completing a “successful trial of the technology involving over 17,000 patient interactions across nine NHS sites”. According to the trust, the study saw a reduction in the length of appointments by 8.2 percent and a 23.5 percent increase in direct patient interaction time, following the completion of the two-year project.
Based on the trial, some of the main benefits that have been noted include more time spent on face-to-face interactions, less time spent on admin tasks and improved accuracy and efficiency in clinical notes.
“The patients I see in my clinics have very complex medical conditions and it’s so important to make sure I capture what we discuss in our appointments accurately, but often this means I am typing rather than looking directly at my patient and their family. Using the AI tool meant I could sit closer to them face-to-face and really focus on what they were sharing with me, without compromising on the quality of documentation,” Dr Maaike Kusters, clinician at GOSH, said.
This development forms part of GOSH’s wider AI Strategy piblished last month focusing on enhancing clinical outcomes, driving efficiencies, reducing clinician burden and improving patient care through AI-driven solutions.
AI technology: the wider trend
For a recent HTN Now session, we were joined by experts from across the health and care sector to discuss some of the practicalities and key considerations to take into account when it comes to using ambient scribe technology in primary care and general practice. Panellists included: Dr Shanker Vijayadeva, GP, NHS England (London region); Rhod Joyce, deputy director of digital transformation, NHS England; Dr Dom Pimenta M.D., co-founder & chief executive officer, Tortus AI; Dr Hannah Allen, chief medical officer, Heidi Health; and Dr Andrew Whiteley, managing director, Lexacom.
Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust published an AI Strategy, outlining current and future AI work along with plans for benefits realisation, implementation, AI workforce development, infrastructure and data architecture. Driving the transformation are four key themes: enhancing children and young people centred care; empowering colleagues and freeing up time using intelligent automation, AI assistants, and smarter workflows; transforming outcomes for children and young people by delivering precision care through AI-optimised pathways, predictive analytics, and remote monitoring tools; and revolutionising paediatric diagnostics with “cutting edge” innovation.
In April, NHS England issued guidance on the use of AI-enabled ambient scribing products in health and care settings, to support chief information officers and chief clinical information officers when introducing this technology. The guidance aims to support business case development, risk assessments, governance, data protection impact assessments and evaluation and monitoring. A key part of the framework covers a series of considerations, posing questions to clarify the product functionality, outputs for transcription, outputs for downstream tasks and data and system considerations.
For a recent HTN Now webinar, we were joined by Neill Crump, digital strategy director at Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust; Anil Mistry, AI safety lead and senior clinical scientist in AI at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust; and Matea Deliu, GP clinical lead and clinical lead for primary care digital delivery, South East London ICB. Our panellists discussed AI in healthcare, sharing their own learnings from recent AI strategies and projects as well as their thoughts on regulations, tackling data bias, through to safety and evaluations.
