Cohort 4

Ellie Asgari

  • Consultant Nephrologist
  • Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
  • @AsgariElham
  • 2023

In my 12 months as a Topol Digital Fellow I will assess and use available digital tools to improve the outpatient administration workflow, aiming to increase efficiency, enhance patient safety and reduce clinical non-attendance leading also to higher patient and staff satisfaction.

My Topol fellowship problem / project:

Outpatient administration has a significant impact on the service we provide for our patients. If it doesn’t work well, it can lead to problems including:

– Risk to patients: If patients miss their appointment by mistake, it can cause significant problems for their health

– Significant waste of resources: Inefficiency in the service and high rates of non-attendance (DNA) is a waste for the organisation

– Inequalities in delivering healthcare to the population: We offer healthcare to a diverse population and need to identify their needs and be able to tailor our services based on their demand. Identifying the root cause of DNA and addressing them is a major step towards improving access to healthcare when it is needed

– Dissatisfied workforce leading to low morale and reduced efficiency: Both admin staff and healthcare workers feel excess pressure and workload which could be improved by making aspects of the workflow automated.

The aim of my project is to assess the available digital tools that can help improve the outpatient workflow process and integrate them into our digital health system. This is with the aim of:

– Reduce mundane tasks that could be automated for admin staff so they can spend more time with patients who need their attention

– Give patients more control over their appointment scheduling

– Identify patients at risk of DNA using artificial intelligence and work towards reducing this by addressing the underlying cause

Reaching the above goals will improve efficiency, enhance patient safety and increase staff and patient satisfaction.

I am a consultant nephrologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital and am passionate about patient safety and quality improvement. I have been the governance and audit lead and have supervised and completed several quality improvement projects. I am the chair of the Standards and Guidelines Committee at the British Transplant Society and oversee the update of previous guidelines as well as the production of new ones.

I have a keen interest in research and have completed an MSc and a PhD and have been the primary investigator for several national and international studies. I am excited about how technology and particularly artificial intelligence are going to influence healthcare and am studying on a master’s course on ‘Explainable Artificial intelligence in Healthcare Management’.