How Palantir Is Helping To Reduce Wait Times for Cancer Patients
“The NHS cancer treatment wait time reduced in Palantir software pilot”
The headline from a UK based paper The Times released. It's not supposed to be super biased left or right. It's in the United Kingdom and if anything, there is a negative bias towards Palantir.
One could argue that the UK NHS is the most bureaucratic and least efficient health care system in the developed world. However, you can't deny results.
The Times in the United Kingdom writing an article that is actually showcasing what Palantir software has been able to do is extremely noteworthy.
Dr Timothy Ferris NHS's England director of Transport transformation said “To reduce waiting lists, the NHS must use the latest technology and harness data in a more Innovative way to improve outcomes for patients. Trusts need an accurate and up-to-date picture of who's waiting for treatment and how long. This software gives them the means to harness their resources and plan better to ensure patients get the right treatment as soon as possible”
This is actually important, these are actual life or death decisions. Palantir’s software is actually enabling professionals to make sure that people with cancer have a better chance of living. Not because they’ve developed a new technology or a new treatment rather to help them treat the cancer, but because of all the other externalities that exist.
Life Or Death
These are truly life or death decisions. If a doctor doesn't report something, or doesn't see something in the paperwork, and ends up giving a person the wrong dose of medicine, there are large ramifications. This is why doctors have massive levels of insurance, because they get sued all the time.
The system developed by Palantir was piloted at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation trust.
-382 Consultants were using it.
-Patients with suspected cancer now have their first appointment on average two days sooner.
-The length of time staff spend discussing them in meetings has halved.
-Appointments canceled on the day due to avoidable areas of records have been cut by 56%.
Doctors are being freed from piles of paperwork by the NHS software that stores all the patients' records in one place. The technology used by 20 NHS trusts means that the hospital staff no longer has to waste time filling in forms of looking up records. It significantly reduced waiting times helping cancer patients to receive life-saving treatment two days faster on average by reducing time sensitive administrative work.
The software also means that patients with cancer can be tracked from the moment it is diagnosed providing a single digital record of their illness and doctors and nurses no longer have to rifle through paper records.
Improving relations
Palantir reducing paperwork is seen as a vital tool to boosting efficiency as it aims to bring down record waiting lists of 7.2 million in the NHS backlog. The NHS again has one of the highest waiting lists on the planet.
Incredibly important to understand, the software means that patients with cancer can be tracked from the moment it is diagnosed. Providing a single digital record of their illness. This goes back to Alex Karp’s favorite idea of creating a single oncology for organizations.
A single source of truth that now doctors nurses administrative people can actually look through they no longer have to rifle through paper records which makes a lot of sense .
Jeffrey Ahmed, a surgeon at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital said:
“Deploying technological innovation has been critical for our team to see and treat cancer patients sooner as we tackle the backlog. We are excited to be part of the pilot phase and have already seen the measurable positive impact that has helped our team to maximize our resources for the benefits of patients.”
These are individual people, individual surgeons, individual administrators of the entire NHS saying that the software has had a positive effect. The article from The Times in the UK, showcasing Palantir’s role with the NHS, looking to roll out this particular software around cancer throughout every hospital in England, that's a big deal.
If Palantir is able to incorporate themselves throughout the NHS, then that big $400M deal for the NHS is still up in play.
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