St John improves national performance with real-time data

eHealthNews.nz: AI & Analytics

St John improves national performance with real-time data

Wednesday, 28 April 2021

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NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

St John has launched a National Operations Effectiveness Centre (NOEC) using real-time data to drive efficiencies and improve performance.

Dave Richards, General Manager Ambulance Operations – Operational Effectiveness at St John, says the service has already seen a lift in performance with the NOEC, especially in urban areas.

The NOEC team works alongside the country’s three ambulance communication centres, which answer around 1600 calls every day, to manage incidents and assign resources.

It collects data from the ambulance dispatch system and mobile data in real-time from ambulances around the country to enable it to monitor performance, using SSRS and Power BI dashboards.

Since the centre went live, the ambulance service has seen an improvement in response times and the time it takes to complete a job and transfer a patient to an Emergency Department.

“We had some real-time reporting already in place, but we have a lot more now as part of the NOEC, so we can monitor 24/7 to see how things are going and where the pressures are,” says Richards

“We do predictive analytics looking at historical volumes and where calls come from day by day and simulate that to look at how we could improve response times.”

Dispatchers then locate vehicles according to this predictive data.

The centre also identifies EDs experiencing high demand and will deploy an operations manager to the scene to help if the situation is particularly bad.

The national centre manages the initial response to any major incidents and events and is a single point of contact for all staff calls, such as calling in sick, so this is done at a national level with data at the fingertips to assign staff as necessary.

It is working to ensure double crewing of all ambulances, aiming to have 100 percent double crews by June this year.

St John is also working to increase the number of patients able to be safely treated at home, which is better for the person and the health service, says Richards.

“We now have about 60 percent of patients transported to ED and we continue to improve on that,” Richards says.