"Nowhere else, at least that we are aware of, is there a company of our size and scope with a comprehensive system of eight elements to measure and reward a healthy workplace," GE's chief medical officer Dr. Robert Galvin told DOTmed News in a prepared statement.

"AIR-TRAFFIC CONTROL" IN THE HOSPITAL

Possibly one of the most advanced aspects of the plan, what one GE executive called the "real Star Wars cutting-edge stuff," uses air-traffic control software to manage patient loads at a busy city hospital.

Mount Sinai Medical Center, a research hospital in Manhattan, is usually slammed: it routinely operates at around 95 percent capacity, sometimes at more than 100 percent during the flu season, GE said. But the literature on occupancy generally holds it to be sustainable only if it stays at around 85 percent, Jeff Terry, managing principal of GE Healthcare's performance solutions, told DOTmed.

"We're seeking to redefine the redline," Terry said. "If we do that, it's a big deal for patients, it's a big deal for hospitals."

To sustainably manage nearly full occupancy rates, GE has put in a "smart" patient-handling system that actually predicts the state of the hospital hours and eventually, possibly, a day into the future.

To do this at Mount Sinai, where GE first began setting up the project about 18 months ago, the company has put in AgileTrac, air-traffic control software. This works in coordination with RFID tags inserted into wristbands that every patient at the hospital wears, allowing the hospital to track in real-time the location of everyone on the floor.

But underlying it all is an experimental tool, a simulation model, running probabilistic algorithms, developed at the GE Global Research Center outside of Albany, N.Y.

Using this, the system can tell nurses when they can expect beds to be free to allow them to efficiently use space. GE said Mount Sinai has been able to treat an additional 10,000 patients a year with the same number of beds and employees, thanks in part to the system.

Currently, it can accurately predict the state of the hospital eight hours into the future, Terry said, about the length of a nurse's shift.

"Now, we're trying to push the envelope to 16 and 24 hours," he said.

GE is also setting up the system in the Virtua Health System in New Jersey, as well as the Ochshner Health System in New Orleans. A full commercial launch strategy could come about as early as next year, GE said.


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