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. 2018 Jun 22;5(2):85-90.
doi: 10.1136/bmjstel-2017-000289. eCollection 2019.

Effective resource management using machine learning in medicine: an applied example

Alan Williams  1 , Ann-Marie Mekhail  2   3 , James Williams  4 , Johanna McCord #  5 , Vanessa Buchan #  6
Affiliations

Effective resource management using machine learning in medicine: an applied example

Alan Williams et al. BMJ Simul Technol Enhanc Learn. .

Abstract

Background: The field of medicine is rapidly becoming digitised, and in the process passively amassing large volumes of healthcare data. Machine learning and data analytics are advancing rapidly, but these have been slow to be taken up in the day-to-day delivery of healthcare. We present an application of machine learning to optimise a laboratory testing programme as an example of benefiting from these tools.

Methods: Canterbury District Health Board has recently implemented a system for urgent lab sample processing in the community, reducing unnecessary emergency presentations to hospital. Samples are transported from primary care facilities to a central laboratory. To improve the efficiency of this service, our team built a prototype transport scheduling platform using machine learning techniques and simulated the efficiency and cost impact of the platform using historical data.

Results: Our simulation demonstrated procedural efficiency and potential for annual savings between 5% and 14% from implementing a real-time lab sample transport scheduling platform. Advantages included providing a forward job list to the laboratory, an expected time to result and a streamlined transport request process.

Conclusion: There are a range of opportunities in healthcare to use large datasets for improved delivery of care. We have described an applied example of using machine learning techniques to improve the efficiency of community patient lab sample processing at scale. This is with a view to demonstrating practical avenues for collaboration between clinicians and machine learning engineers.

Keywords: clinical informatics; healthcare resource utilization; inefficiency in health; primary care; resource management big data.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: AW and JW are co-founders of the software company Isogonal.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Map of Christchurch showing origin and destination locations.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Multiple regression model expressing fare as a function of journey time and distance. (A) Partial plot of the relationship between the journey time and fare given other factors. (B) Partial plot of the relationship between the journey distance and fare given other factors.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of the time and distance estimates with known values from first dataset to assess the quality of the model. (A) Linear model fit between the estimated times and known times. (B) Linear model fit between the estimated distances and the known distances.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Transport requests from the top 10 primary care facilities by request count, February to June 2017.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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