Scheduling software emerges as practical AI tool in Covid response

A Norwegian startup is offering AI scheduling software to public hospitals during the Covid-19 crisis, targeting one of the operational problems straining health systems: getting the right staff onto the right shifts. Fortune reported that the tool from Globus.AI shows how less flashy uses of artificial intelligence may help hospitals sooner than more experimental pandemic technologies.

Fortune’s Jeremy Kahn reported that much of the public attention around AI in the pandemic has centered on outbreak tracking, contact tracing, social-distancing enforcement, diagnosis, drug research and vaccine work. Kahn wrote that many of those systems remain early-stage and may need more testing before they can affect the current outbreak.

Rota pressure in hospitals

Staff scheduling has become harder as hospitals shift doctors and nurses into emergency departments and intensive care units, Fortune reported. In the U.K., hospitals have also faced canceled elective procedures, curtailed leave, longer 12-hour shifts, early-graduated final-year medical students and daily absences among workers who are ill or self-isolating.

Some British hospitals have reported staff absence rates as high as 30%, according to Fortune. The pressure has grown as the U.K. government asks retired doctors and nurses to return to work; the Financial Times reported that more than 11,000 had answered that request.

Sky News reported that the government also sought 250,000 volunteers to support the National Health Service and other essential services. Fortune reported that placing those volunteers alongside regular medical staff adds another layer to an already complex scheduling job.

How Globus says its system works

Globus.AI was founded in Oslo in 2017 by four friends who had worked in Norway’s oil industry, Fortune reported. The company makes software that helps organizations match workers to available shifts across industries.

One of its customers is Dedicare, a Scandinavian medical staffing company, according to Fortune. Jan Kristiansen, Globus.AI’s chief operating officer, told Fortune the system had been handling about 4,500 shifts each week for Dedicare by matching doctors and nurses with work in private hospitals.

Helge Bjorland, Globus.AI’s chief executive, told Fortune the company adjusted its software after the coronavirus outbreak spread and offered it at no charge to Norway’s public hospitals. The system is designed to match health workers’ skills with hospital needs and line up doctors’ availability with open shifts.

Kristiansen told Fortune the software cuts about 90% of the time needed to fill each open slot, saving a rota manager roughly two to four hours a day. He said hospitals using it can increase their allocation capacity by 30% to 40%, and that an administrator can learn the system in about an hour.

Fortune reported that Globus.AI uses a mix of techniques, including natural language processing, deep learning and logistic regression. The system also applies rules covering legal limits on working hours and hospital policies, such as requiring a senior doctor on a shift to supervise junior staff.

The software has been deployed in Oslo and Sola, another Norwegian city, according to Fortune. Ernst & Young, which has a partnership with Globus.AI, is helping expand the system to public hospitals elsewhere in Norway, Fortune reported.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.