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Even in modern hospitals, the primary method through which a patient can request assistance from a nurse is a button and a bell that cannot: distinguish between patient needs, provide reassurance that help is coming; or support effective prioritisation of requests. This outdated, binary system is failing to adequately support patients and their care teams.

DeloitteASSIST is an AI-enabled patient communication solution, enabling patients and nurses to request assistance without the need to press a button. Powered by smart speaker hardware, natural language processing and machine learning it understands a patient’s or nurse’s spoken request, which is then prioritised, to ensure the right help comes sooner. DeloitteASSIST is a wholly-owned, self-funded Deloitte initiative and has the potential to enable a digital healthcare revolution by streamlining hospital communications and increasing the quality of healthcare provided to people in need, not only in Australia, but globally.

DeloitteASSIST represents an entirely new approach to the problem of nurse-patient communication. DeloitteASSIST has been deployed the Prince of Wales Hospital (POWH) in Sydney where 87% of nurses reported feeling more confident in their ability to appropriately respond to patient requests. 92% of patients would recommend and 100% would like it available to them if they were in a hospital again.

The solution is focused on improving patient experience by reducing unnecessary delays in the treatment process, releasing time to care (for nurses, doctors and clinicians) and improving individual capacity for patients to manage one’s own wellness and recovery. Since implementation, the Nursing Unit Manager (NUM) has seen complaints regarding waiting for nursing staff to respond decline to zero, a significant indicator of patient experience improvement.

Within a week of the roll-out the solution had helped the hospital to understand the nature of patient requests to staff, time of day patterns, and response times. These insights enable the team to engage in continuous improvement as they strive toward excellence in health care service delivery.