Fujitsu has announced a new operating room optimization solution that runs on quantum-inspired computing technology.
WHAT IT DOES
Its latest Surgical Capacity Optimization offering under the Uvance brand is a SaaS application powered by Fujitsu’s computing technology Digital Annealer.Â
The decision support assistant tool features two components: a recommendation engine that provides tailored, mathematically validated recommendations that improve block time allocation in OR schedules, and a generative block scheduling wizard that provides projections for hypothetical scheduling scenarios.
Fujitsu is rolling out the SCO across North America, as well as some parts of Asia-Pacific and Europe on a controlled basis.Â
WHY IT MATTERS
What sets the SCO apart from other OR solutions, Fujitsu claims, is its ability to help uncover additional OR time to accommodate increased case volume. By using the hospital’s historical and forecast surgery scheduling data from the EHR, it checks for patterns in block utilization over time to identify new prime-time operating hours and days.
Based on OR trials at Baptist Health Doctors Hospital in the United States, SCO delivered a 37% improvement in available prime-time minutes over three months which amounted to 231 new full-day blocks.Â
Meanwhile, through digital twin technology, the SCO can make a projection of the impact of complex scheduling scenarios on utilization rates and revenue.Â
“Not only does this take the guesswork out of everyday decision-making for perioperative staff through a more data-driven approach, but it also minimizes the risks related to significant strategic decisions contemplated by hospital leadership teams,” explained Dean Prelazzi, head of Healthcare Capacity Optimisation at Fujitsu Uvance Healthy Living.
MARKET SNAPSHOT
Fujitsu’s quantum-inspired computing is unheard of until today in surgery optimization. However, AI has been heavily utilized in delivering much-needed efficiencies in the OR without the need to build additional rooms. In the United States, health tech vendor Qventus has allowed Allina Health and Saint Luke’s Health System to accommodate more cases each month by automating OR scheduling using AI.Â
ON THE RECORD
“Fujitsu’s solution challenges the conventional way of managing OR utilization. It targets the root cause, not the symptoms, revolutionizing OR schedules to yield the best outcome for both hospitals and patients. It also gives perioperative teams solid, easily-accessed data to support change, so that by the time they propose re-organizing schedules, or have to negotiate difficult conversations with providers, they have total confidence they’re doing what’s right,” Baptist Health CMIO Dr Barry Katzen said about the new Fujitsu SCO.
“The additional prime time OR capacity we uncovered using the solution’s recommendations will greatly enhance our performance-driven revenue potential in surgical services, while always prioritizing patient care. Being able to predict and manage our surgical capacity with this level of precision is transformative and will help us improve the fiscal performance of the surgical discipline,” Doctors Hospital CEO Javier Hernandez-Lichtl also commented.
