A Kent hospital is the first NHS trust in the country to use a potentially life-saving artificial intelligence (AI) tool to help clinicians identify infectious diseases at an early stage.
East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust (EKHUFT) is using AI at Kent and Canterbury Hospitals to analyze clinical information such as blood tests, blood pressure and temperature to generate a personalized infection risk level for each patient.
The software, called MEMORI, is part of a collaboration between the trust and British health technology company Sanome.
Ward manager Julie Jones said this gave her time to “actually be with patients and spend time caring for them, rather than digging around for notes.”
The NHS 10 Year Plan aims to move from analogue to digital, further supporting the use of AI tools such as MEMORI, which is fully approved as a medical device.
Routine clinical information already contained in the patient record, such as observations, medications, and demographics, is analyzed to generate an infection risk level.
East Kent staff, including nurses, medical assistants, consultants and therapists, worked to develop it to ensure it supported real-world clinical practice.
“Before the infection actually develops, a score, or memory score, is calculated that indicates whether the patient is at risk of developing the infection,” Jones said.
Asked if there was any possibility of staff changes, she said: “Absolutely not. We’ll just support them.”
“It’s going to be a win-win situation. It’s going to be good for patients, it’s going to be good for rehabilitation, it’s going to be good for bed flow throughout the hospital. So it can only be positive.”
