Northampton General Hospital has developed a bot using intelligent automation to regulate the flow of oxygen to Covid-19 patients.
It has built the system with bot specialist Automation Anywhere and digital consultancy SBL in response to the rapid rise in the number of patients with breathing difficulties that it treats.
The hospital has two large oxygen tanks to supply ventilation machines and patients are assigned to wards to allow for the equal distribution of oxygen. Traditionally the monitoring of the tanks has been done manually, requiring staff to log into a system and physically collect each reaching.
As the pandemic has increased the pressure on the hospitals, the partners developed the bot to take the readings and calculate flow rates without human intervention 24 hours a day.
Automation Anywhere said that automating the process has freed up staff, increased the frequency of reporting and mitigated any clinical risk, ensuring the demand for oxygen is properly spread across the two tanks.
“Managing the supply and flow of oxygen has never been more important,” said Hugo Matias,chief information officer for Northampton General Hospital. “Automating the collection and sharing of this data has given valuable hours back and increased confidence that we can offer the best level of patient care.”
Image by US Navy, CC BY 2.0
