Leveraging Computer Vision and AI for Emergency Room Efficiency: A Deeper Look at Matroid’s Potential

SUMMARY

This case study explores the remarkable impact of Matroid’s computer vision technology on Emergency Room (ER) operations, shedding light on its potential for revolutionizing healthcare delivery. By harnessing the power of existing video cameras, Matroid enhances ER efficiency by optimizing turnaround times, staffing allocation, and overall patient care. Through analysis of precise turnaround data, Matroid’s computer vision platform empowers hospital administrators and medical directors to make well-informed staffing adjustments, resulting in improved patient handling and resource utilization. By integrating Matroid’s AI technology into existing ER patient systems, emergency rooms can acquire valuable insights regarding EMS drop-offs, detect and address inefficiencies, and strategically plan for optimal patient flow.

CHALLENGE

Emergency Rooms (ERs) face challenges in efficiently managing Emergency Medical Services (EMS) turnarounds due to a lack of visibility into diversions, limited insights into operational inefficiencies, and inadequate staffing and resource utilization. ERs need to better understand diversions, or instances where EMS providers redirect to another critical care facility, as well as the ER’s turnaround efficiency in evaluating, treating, and discharging those patients who are admitted. Existing reporting systems fail to capture critical information, hindering optimal care delivery, patient flow, and resource allocation. To address these issues, there is a need for a comprehensive solution that accurately detects EMS diversions, identifies temporal patterns, improves turnaround efficiencies, and optimizes staffing and resource allocation within ERs.

Matroid’s computer vision platform emerges as a practical and innovative solution. By harnessing the power of advanced AI and machine learning technologies, Matroid presents an opportunity to bridge this information gap by seamlessly capturing and analyzing data from pre-existing video cameras, including security cameras. A user-friendly interface and continuous monitoring capabilities ensure real-time insights without disruption. Matroid’s analysis enables hospitals to ascertain the actual number of EMS providers who attempted to drop off patients, and make data-driven decisions for enhanced operational efficiency and improved patient outcomes.

THE MATROID DIFFERENCE

During the Proof of Concept (POC) period, Matroid’s AI demonstrated its proficiency in accurately detecting EMS ambulance drivers arriving at ERs and determining whether they successfully dropped off a patient or left due to the ER being at maximum capacity. It also noted specific outlier crews with consistently longer turnaround durations and identified temporal patterns among different providers, ultimately enabling the identification of the “most efficient” EMS providers. 

Matroid’s software efficiently extracts and processes relevant information from the video footage, facilitating timely data collection and analysis. The Matroid system operates 24/7 to provide continuous monitoring and supply hospitals with real-time insights into EMS activities without disruption. Matroid’s software presents the data in a user-friendly and easy-to-understand format.

OPTIMIZATION INSIGHTS

After the Proof-of-Concept (POC) phase, Matroid outperformed traditional reporting systems by a significant margin, boasting an accuracy improvement of 12-15%. Particularly noteworthy, Matroid successfully captured EMS diversions that went unnoticed by the conventional reporting systems, shedding light on periods of inefficiency that directly contributed to these diversions. Analysis of the data by Matroid revealed that during the inefficient hours of the ER, the average turnaround time was 2.26% – 23.29% longer than the daily average, and 4.46% – 40.43% worse than during efficient hours. These periods of inefficiency resulted in 7 projected EMS diversions on a weekly basis at the trial site.

Matroid’s data analysis empowers healthcare organizations to proactively address inefficiencies and optimize resource allocation. By scrutinizing weekly, monthly, and annual trends, Matroid aids in ensuring that Emergency Departments (EDs) are appropriately staffed and equipped to plan beds effectively. Implementing Matroid’s insights and analysis of EMS turnarounds to reduce one diversion per ED per week is projected to increase the number of additional patients by at least four per month. These findings underscore the tangible benefits and scalability of leveraging Matroid’s analysis to enhance efficiency and patient throughput within the ER setting.

INCREASED TURN AROUND EFFICIENCY

Implementing Matroid in the ER has provided a distinctive advantage in EMS turnaround. By aggregating and analyzing data from the Matroid platform, hospitals can showcase their effective turnaround times to EMS providers, incentivizing them to choose their ER over competing hospitals. Matroid’s accurate reporting and analysis also enable hospitals to provide targeted feedback on crew efficiencies, fostering productive conversations and improvements.

The data analysis conducted by Matroid uncovers valuable insights about EMS providers’ performance, allowing hospitals to identify higher-performing crews and provide specific feedback for improvement. Matroid’s software also illuminates EMS diversion patterns, enabling hospitals to address these challenges and minimize diversions by gaining insights into which EMS experience higher rates of diversions.

Leveraging Matroid’s data, hospitals can track local, regional and national trends, fostering innovation and providing valuable feedback on a broader scale. This comprehensive understanding enhances operational efficiency and drives improvements, establishing hospitals as the preferred choice for EMS providers while ensuring efficient patient care and resource allocation.

ENHANCED STAFFING AND RESOURCE UTILIZATION

Matroid’s data capture plays a pivotal role in optimizing ER staffing and accurately predicting staffing requirements. By tracking EMS turnaround times, Matroid helps analyze staffing and bed levels during critical hours, enabling efficient resource allocation. Notably, Matroid observed EMS turnaround times to be 20-27% quicker than the average during peak hours. This data allows for strategically scheduled lunch breaks and staff downtime during periods of traditionally lower frequency or shorter wait times, ensuring optimal staff availability during peak demand hours.

The ability to track these trends over time facilitates accurate predictions for bed allocation adjustments. By leveraging the data, hospitals can proactively identify when and where patients should be moved to free up additional beds. Conversely, understanding the average number of diversions per month allows for an assessment of potential impacts on patient acceptance rates when increasing the number of ED beds.

Matroid’s data and analysis also assumes a crucial role in managing the hiring, staffing, and retention of ED nurses. By analyzing EMS turnaround trends, EDs can make informed decisions about staffing needs, helping address challenges posed by the current nursing labor shortage. The insights provided by Matroid can be extended to analyze both EMS arrivals and walk-ins, enabling a comprehensive evaluation of patient flow within the ED rooms. This holistic approach ensures that resources are effectively allocated based on real-time data, maximizing efficiency and enhancing patient care.

CONCLUSION

The incorporation of Matroid’s computer vision platform into ER operations represents the practical application of advanced technology in the healthcare sector. Through this case study, we have witnessed the transformative benefits it brings, ranging from increased ER patient capacity to productive collaborations with EMS providers and optimized staffing and patient management practices. Matroid’s platform complements existing systems and drives a transformative shift, revolutionizing healthcare delivery to be more efficient and effective. By harnessing the power of its data capture and analysis capabilities, hospitals have gained invaluable insights, empowering data-driven decision-making, enhanced resource allocation, and improved patient care. The success of this implementation underscores the profound potential of integrating Matroid’s AI and machine learning solutions into the healthcare ecosystem, paving the way for a future where technology revolutionizes healthcare operations and outcomes.