Data revolutionized healthcare before, can it be done again?
Florence Nightingale pioneered the profession of modern nursing in the 1850s and can rightfully be called the founder of evidence-based nursing. Her use of data deduced the spread of infectious diseases in hospitals and helped shape public health policies. Nightingale’s impact was so great it’s only fitting International Nurses Day on May 12th also commemorates her birthday.
“For Nightingale, compassion built upon science and took care to a new level. She was not only concerned about the patients in her care, but for broader societal well-being, too – using data-based arguments to push for public policy changes that addressed the importance of prevention as opposed to just cure. She also worked to help educate the general population about important health issues as private health care was out of reach for most citizens in the Victorian era. Nightingale used statistics to identify opportunities to improve healthcare, but she was also able to present those data-based insights in a way that was accessible and actionable.” -David Green, Director of the Florence Nightingale Museum
Nightingale’s legacy is not something to be left in the history books. The topic of how we use data to keep people healthy remains as relevant as it was 200 years ago. Today, the coxcomb diagram – which was designed by Nightingale and William Farr to highlight the number of deaths as a result of preventable infections – and other, manual, laborious measurement tools are being replaced by the latest technologies, including artificial intelligence – a trend that has accelerated significantly in recent months.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve all been humbled by the stories of the incredibly dedicated healthcare workers across the world. We will never forget the images we’ve seen of nurses coming off their long shifts.
Our role at Microsoft continues to be the digital first responder to these first responders. In looking across the region I am proud of the work we’re doing to support essential healthcare services – empowering the health sector to use data in new ways to liberate capacity and time from strained frontline health workers, while at the same time enabling data-driven decisions and improving outcomes for patients and citizens.
Microsoft’s Healthcare Bot service is a great example of how AI and data can assist with self-screening for coronavirus infection, provide treatment information and – if need be – hand over to a healthcare worker.
Based on Microsoft Azure, the service is powered by AI and natural language processing. In just a few hours it enables organizations to create bespoke bots, in accordance to an approved clinical protocol, using data that is owned and solely accessible by the healthcare provider. The technology enables these providers to efficiently and effectively respond to all first-line inquiries, assessing people’s symptoms and facilitating handovers to medical staff when needed.
Since March, health organizations have created 1,535 Covid-19 self-assessment bots based on the Microsoft Healthcare Bot service, reaching 31 million individuals and serving more than 290 million messages.
Emergency Medical Services Copenhagen saw the bot answer more than 30,000 calls on the first day and it was so successful that the technology was rolled out across Denmark.
